العادات والتقاليد الأجتماعية في حمص ٣_a .. كتاب حمص

After that, they are placed in jars and their mouths are tightly closed for a period ranging between a few weeks and a few months, during which a layer of mold forms around the shanklish discs, and then they become “level,” that is, ripe. When needed, some tablets are taken from the jar, washed, and the layer of mold removed from them. They become ready for food, and if olive oil is added to them, they taste good and their calories increase.

As for the rich, milk and its derivatives and types of sweets, especially pies stuffed with cream or walnuts and sugar, and fried or boiled eggs were among the familiar types on their breakfast tables.

After breakfast, the head of the house goes to work in the market, and the mother takes care of the household chores, such as washing, cleaning, and cooking. As for the children, they go to the school or play in the neighborhood. If the mother is not busy, she can visit some of her friends, neighbors, or relatives in their homes before noon, because the lunch event did not happen in the first place. Rather, the main thing was the dinner meal that the cook prepared for her. The dinner event usually took place after Morocco, as for the elders, they used to eat their dinner in the afternoon, and at dinner all the family members would gather around a copper (chest) or straw dish in which the food was placed. We can imagine what happens in this case: the children’s voices rise and their mother tries to silence them and feeds them food in turn. Everyone tries to lean on the other and push him to reach the shared plate before him. In some cases, each daughter-in-law is alone with her children and serves him dinner in front of her house in the summer or in her house in the winter, because the family consisted of the grandfather, his children, and his grandchildren, and the population of one house could reach forty people or more. The wealthy allocate a house for each son, and if the house is large, it is called a hall, and its roof is usually arched.

The son slept in the house or hall with his wife and children, boys and girls, regardless of their number. In some cases, the hall or house was divided with a sheet or rug into two parts, and in each of them a family slept, separated from its neighbors only by a cloth curtain that did not prevent a sound or conceal a whisper or a snort!!!

It is not permissible for a son to move his family out of his father’s house to live in a house of his own as long as his father is alive. The division of the large family into small families and their dispersion in multiple houses usually occurred after the grandfather’s death and his children obtained the inheritance and liquidated their rights among themselves. As for the life of the father, it is very reprehensible for the son to break away from his father’s authority in a house of his own and (separate from his family)!!!

* Daily food:

We mentioned above breakfast food, but dinner, which is the main event, was based on cooking and all its types depended on the following types: flour, bulgur, lentils, milk, ghee, oil, onions, rice, chickpeas, and beans. The country until the last quarter of the nineteenth century was called (English eggplant) and was not eaten. Unless they are green, they are raw, but if they are red, they are considered spoiled, as is the meat. As for the vegetables, they were not desirable, the most important of which were eggplant, leeks, zucchini, kidney beans, pumpkin, Swiss chard, and cabbage. As for the tomatoes, they were delayed and were thrown away!!!

There were no refrigerators or a cooling system, so most people relied on some summer vegetables for winter consumption, such as black and regular eggplant, zucchini, okra, long sword squash, kidney beans, garlic, and onions. The loss of refrigeration and archives (conservatory) forces people to supply their homes with annual supplies that vary according to the financial situation of each family. The most important material in the rations (flour), which is the mainstay of the home, and the well-to-do people used to buy it (mill by mill), and the mill is estimated at about a hundred kilos or more. As for the poor, they used to buy it by the pound, and for this reason they said in their proverbs describing the poor (his house is for curry, and bread is for rent), meaning his house is rented and his bread is bought. A metaphor for the absence of a house he owns or property that provides him with its wealth. The housewife would knead the flour and then wait for it to ferment, so she would flatten it and send it in the tray (2) or the chest with one of her children to the oven, or she would bake it herself on the oven. In Al-Lakan, bakeries have not intended to provide bread directly to the people except since the early 1950s of this century and in a limited manner. Then this custom spread after housewives felt that it relieved a great burden from their shoulders, as it saved them the task of kneading dough, flattening it, and baking it, and saved the children from the task of carrying the dough to the oven and then returning it baked, and wasting time waiting for their turn. The second material in the supplies is (bulgur), which is made from wheat after boiling it and crushing it on a special mill stone. The resulting product is then dried in the sun and separated into two parts: the fine one, from which various types of kibbeh are made, and the coarse one, which is used in cooking cud or boiled and fried with ghee. It means Arabic ghee because vegetarianism was not yet known. As well as vegetable oil.