Home away from home: Saj-baking

A couple of singed fingertips and a flour mishap later, I am slamming sticky bread onto the scathing hot iron of the saj — not too badly for it being my first time doing it, if I do say so myself.

The saj, pronounced distinctly with a deep, velarized “s,” denoted by the Arabic letter ص, is a dome-shaped iron griddle heated atop a natural gas stove that is attached to the bottom. The contraption is used to make saj bread, a thin, crispy unleavened flatbread popular in the Levant. Dating back centuries across the Middle East, the saj is both a family pastime and a means of livelihood in rural villages, with family-owned shops usually littered across Lebanese towns.

Popular saj bread toppings include meat or chicken shawarma, yogurt, cheese and zaa’tar, kishik and ground meat. This then transforms the bread into a man’oushe al saj — a beloved Levantine breakfast item consisting of the flatbread with some type of spread spooned onto it while it’s still on the griddle. The bread can also be eaten plain, or torn up into smaller pieces to dip in or grab other dishes. The uniquely thin, delicate and chewy texture of the bread makes it ideal for wrapping around fillings and scooping up stews. 

In Lebanon, the saj is often the center of whatever it touches. Special family breakfasts revolve around saj bread — Ramadan nights that stretch into mornings are spent bread-baking on the little black dome and small shops throughout the countryside are dedicated to making and serving saj bread and man’oushes. Though I haven’t visited Lebanon in years, I can still distinctly picture myself walking into one of the maybe 20 saj shops in my village, the smell of raw dough and flour hanging thickly in the air and a large saj pushed into the corner. Its heat veils the entire room in a still warmth and a grandma, or a young son, or a dad or a mom pounds the sticky dough onto the hot iron.

When I thought about what I wanted to immerse myself in for this piece, I couldn’t stop thinking about wanting to slow down. And though I’m definitely not one to cook, nor am I good at it (I was scared I was going to burn myself while working the saj the entire time), to me, Lebanon, the shops in my village and kneading dough with my grandma were always moments when time slowed down for just a while. Like the stillness of the warmth in the little bakery, I didn’t have to worry about how much time had passed, or how many days I had left to do some mundane task, or what I looked like or how old I was getting. And that’s what I think immersion is about. 

I was weeks into my first time being away from home and my second year as a college student, feeling the most stressed and the least like myself I have ever felt. I couldn’t think of or do anything else but assignments and work and school and stress, and all the while, I couldn’t stop shuddering at the thought that this would be my life for at least the next three years. So, in the softness of the night, in the few hours stolen away from the long day of usual work and stress, I did some soul-searching. After hours of lying awake and staring at the ceiling (partly because I’m a borderline insomniac), I realized what I wanted, more than anything at that moment, was something that would let me stop thinking for just a little bit.

Despite my background, I’ve never personally worked a saj, made bread or even made a meal to feed others. The months my family and I spend in Lebanon are usually defined by a state of limbo. The Lebanese-ness of my physical appearance and Arabic dialect don’t match up with the skills common to the Lebanese people, like cooking, feeding and gathering people together. Still, I long to be back in my village. I long to be surrounded by my family and the scent of freshly baked saj bread, even when the reality is that I’m usually the one sitting at the table, waiting for the food to be served. I want something to remind me that there is a life and an experience besides the one where I’m sitting in front of my laptop — one that I can create myself.

Even though, like most first-generation Arab-Americans, I can describe in minute detail the ingredients included in a Lebanese dish and their cultural significance to the Arab world, I was treading into somewhat unknown waters. But I longed to lose myself in a task that is central to the idyllic village life lost on me as a second-year American college student — a life that is characterized by slowness and steadiness. The exact words I used when I pitched this idea were “channeling my inner Lebanese grandma.” 

So, with the enlisted help of a friend and her Lebanese grandma who happened to own a saj, I got to work.  

Theirs was somewhat of a mini saj, about the size of a car tire, imported from Lebanon and originally bought from a local kitchenware store. In my friend’s garage, on a flour-covered table, the saj sat amid dried jute leaves, preserved peppers and various spreads and pastes to spoon onto our bread when the time came. Already — despite my knowing, and worrying, about the fact that I am in no capacity a good cook — I felt a small pride in what I was about to undertake; that for once, I would be the one making the food and others would be eating an entire breakfast made by me.  

We began by making a simple dough from flour, yeast, olive oil, sugar, salt and water, allowing it to rise for an hour and then cutting it into smaller balls. Then, we kneaded the dough into a disc, stretching it out by making a strange, circular-like clapping motion where your palms aren’t actually touching, and tossed it from hand to hand. We gently placed it onto what looked like an oversized pin cushion (a karra in Arabic), applied what I thought was an uncalled for amount of force, grabbed the backside of the karra and slammed the front side with the dough onto the saj.

We then spread toppings onto the dough while it was still baking. We used white cheese; zaa’tar, a deep-green tart paste made of ground-up Lebanese oregano, sumac, sesame seeds and olive oil; and kishik, a creamy, savory spread made of tomato, crushed wheat, yogurt and goat milk. Zaa’tar and kishik are both fundamental Lebanese food items, usually homemade through weeks of labor in the summer, then preserved in jars for use during the rest of the year and on a variety of foods.

Fifteen minutes into my below-average kneading and weak dough slamming, I was already sweating and kind-of-but-not-really indicating to my friend’s grandma that I wanted her to finish kneading the rest of the dough. After repeating this process for the third time, my wrists started to hurt. The heat from the saj filled the entire garage and picking up the hot bread off the iron with bare fingers was not an easy feat. It took me a bit, but I eventually fell into a comfortable groove. After about an hour of kneading, stretching, slamming and near-fingertip burning, I got the procedure down well enough that my bread discs stopped coming out misshapen and I could actually pick up a piece off the saj without burning a finger. 

At one point, I got lost enough in the process that I was doing it on my own without realizing it. 

Then, in typical Lebanese fashion, we set up a breakfast table outside and laid out an array of cheeses, yogurts, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, black tea and, at the very center, our saj bread and man’oushes. 

When my friend’s grandma asked why I had eaten so little (half of a zaa’tar and cheese man’oushe to be exact), I joked and repeated the Arabic saying my mom and dad had told me so many times in response to the same question: “The one who cooks the food never has the appetite to eat it.” In truth, I had actually downed two and a half cups of coffee in the thirty minutes I was awake before driving to my friend’s house that morning, and thus already felt full; but, I felt just a small sliver of pride in having actually made something that fed other people and that they actually enjoyed eating it (or so they said — I still don’t entirely believe them). 

For a long time, I imagined myself to be completely cut off from my family’s previous life. This was perhaps why I felt so stressed out all the time and cared too much about grades and school in place of other things, I would think to myself constantly. Even back in Lebanon, speaking to childhood friends and cousins left behind years after my family’s immigration, I felt like I still didn’t completely have access to the lives they carried day-to-day or the specialness of leading such a simple life in the countryside. I would even find myself longing for the brief time in my childhood when I could only speak Arabic and didn’t know English yet. But in my friend’s garage, with her grandma by my side and remnants of flour and dough in every corner, I don’t feel that it’s so far away anymore. With the saj at the center, the stillness I still distinctly imagine is something palpable. 

Though I have returned to campus, I can still hear the scraping noise of the bread as I slide it off the saj and the inclination to slam the pin cushion onto the iron, harder this time, will randomly pop into my head. Two days later, I still feel some vestige of calmness coursing through my body, and I realize I may not be so different from the Lebanese grandma I dream to be. Even though there’s still so much to think about and so much to do, I think I may stop and make bread more often now.

Statement Correspondent Aya Fayad can be reached at ayafayad@umich.edu.

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