There are three things that delight me — four that bring me joy: the embrace of friends at an airport terminal, the soft touch of vapor escaping from a cup of hot cocoa, the voice of a mother reading to her children and the invigorating pungency of a well-spiced kabob.
Is one of these things not quite like the others? Currier and Ives haven’t sold any Middle Eastern greeting cards (as far as I know). Norman Rockwell never painted the freedom to gnaw lamb on a stick. But kabobs are part of my winter experience. Only briefly have I enjoyed them, but their legacy holds.
The word “kabob” (sometimes spelled “kebab”) may indicate any number of things, most of them involving grilled or roasted meat. At Ali Baba Grocery & Restaurant on South University in Little Rock, a “kabob” is served in small pieces on bread with a bean salad and tart green olives on the side. Depending on the customer’s request, the spices vary, but if you allow the servers to assume what you want, you may be treated with very light, cautious flavoring.
I applaud their consideration for American milquetoast, but this is not for me. Give me spice. Give me salt. Give me MSG, even, but give me flavor. I should have made it clear that I was no lily-white amateur.
A few days ago, walking downtown, I caught a whiff of some especially sharp truck exhaust, and memories burst into scenes of a huge city far away. Searcy has its perks, it has its fresh air and Spider-Man snow cones, but it doesn’t quite have the character of a grimy Chinese metropolis littered with sketchy-but-sweet kabob stands.
If you should spend time in the Orient someday, take care to avoid taxis, make uncomplicated plans and sample the food on the street. Thousands of Uyghur men and women spend their entire days over hot grills on the sidewalk, especially in the winter time, setting off bombs of mouth-watering fragrances, skewering lamb and beef imbued with cumin, peppercorns and other herbs and oils unknown to the Paula Deen zombies of the West. The best grills sport racks of sliced potatoes and lotus root, Daikon radish and whole spinach leaves, mushrooms, tomatoes, toasted buns and sometimes even squid.
The posh kids who wouldn’t dare eat at these kiosks claim that the grillers will cut your wrist if you don’t pay right away, but I say “Bah!” Certainly, you’ll meet the occasional crook, you’ll have to pay a stupid amount for pomegranate juice, but most Uyghur kabobbers I met were fiercely open-hearted and kind. My Chinese friends sometimes looked on them with suspicion, but crossing barriers of culture and class is part of the magic. There is no class as far as meat on a stick is concerned.
It’s a nice fantasy: Could Searcy ever have a kabob stand? Will I ever again experience the hospitality and warmth of one of those dingy old grills? Imagine a Searcy, an American South, that did more than just hype its friendliness. Imagine a Searcy with more street food, more cafés, more places to linger and breathe in the complexities of human life — small comforts in a frigid world.
