Grilled sheep's testicles – are they as nice as they sound?

Magic! Absolutely brilliant! First night in Damascus and the lead news story was the attack on a village by US forces killing a number of civilians. The astonishing thing has been the restraint with which the Syrians have responded. Unless I’ve missed something there have been no big demonstrations and no mention of more troops…

Liam

October 28, 2008

1–2 minutes

Magic! Absolutely brilliant! First night in Damascus and the lead news story was the attack on a village by US forces killing a number of civilians.

The astonishing thing has been the restraint with which the Syrians have responded. Unless I’ve missed something there have been no big demonstrations and no mention of more troops being moved to the border. The nearest thing to a threat has been that they will retaliate if it happens again. If, to pick a random example, Belgian troops had murdered eight people in Seattle, the American reaction would probably have not been quite the same.

There is a refreshing contrast here to the cynicsm that one finds about politicians in much of the world. Three quarters of the shops and market stalls have pictures of the president Bashar al-Assad displayed. Some have three or four. The traffic police tow truck has a picture of him holding a bunch of flowers on display in the front windscreen. Isn’t that nice. As is only right his image greets you on every public building. More on this later.

Sheep’s testicles with potatoes. You can have them fried or grilled in lots of the local restaurants. What would you suggest?

8 responses to “Grilled sheep's testicles – are they as nice as they sound?”

RobM

October 28, 2008 at 10:03 am

Mmm, they sound like the dog’s bollocks.

Suggest grilled, in a pitta, with little squirt of lemon juice…

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Roland Rance

October 28, 2008 at 10:33 am

When I was there in 1982, the streets and shops were full of pictures of Hafez el-Assad and Gamal Abd-el Nasser. The market stalls carried tons of kitsch articles with pictures of them. Assad’s picture frowned down from the walls of the Hotel Semiramis. I had never seen such a cult of personality since visiting Yugoslavia in 1974.

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Jason

October 28, 2008 at 5:44 pm

Roasted on an open fire they are quite palatable.

The US attack is quite despicable and underlines why we should conitniue to organise for troops out now. I visited Syria in 1996 and found the people extremely hospitable and very interested in politics. There were certainly a lot of photos of Assad (senior) then as well- however my sheep testicle experience was from rural Ethiopia- suspect they’re failry similar though- I seem to remember only ever eating roast chicken, falafel, hunous and salad in Syria’s smaller towns.

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johng

October 28, 2008 at 8:08 pm

I’m not surprised they’ve not made a fuss. All the talk is of the attack being about the US trying to sabotage talks between Syria and the Europeans. The Syrian State wants normalisation. The US seems split in terms of its position, and most Syrian diplomats are still intent on wooing those making friendly noises. Incidently. Pictures of Nasser? Are you sure about that? Not questioning your honesty just a bit surprised.

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Andy Newman

October 28, 2008 at 11:57 pm

I am also suprised by there being pictures of Nasser, as the Ba’athists have not exactly been his biggest fans, and the unification between Syria and Egypt into the UAR wasn’t a great success.

If they were pictures of nasser, then that suggests a quite interesting aspect to Syrian politics (the last pan-Arabist regime left standing) that I was unaware of.

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entdinglichung

October 29, 2008 at 9:41 am

there are some nasserite parties and also the two wings of the stalinist CP and some other pan-arabian nationalist parties part of the the “National Progressive Front”, playing fig-leaves for the Baath, some other nasserite groups are part of the (illegal) opposition … see http://www.broadleft.org/sy.htm

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Doug

October 29, 2008 at 9:55 am

Re your headline. Answer ‘Are they bollocks’

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Renegade Eye

October 31, 2008 at 9:47 pm

Very interesting post.

They didn’t fall for the Israeli attack last year, which was to provoke them into war.

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