52 pages • 1 hour read
Diana Abu-JaberThe Language of Baklava
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 18-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary: “The Best Cook in the Family”
Aged 34, Diana is nine years out of graduate school. She has spent the time teaching and being continuously in debt, and she decides to return to Amman to research a novel, funded by a Fulbright Scholarship. She feels she has lost her connection to Jordan; on the journey over, she is surprised by the sight of veiled women, people praying in the airplane aisle, and armed soldiers guarding the airport in Beirut.
Before Diana leaves, her mother shows her photos of Bud and his many brothers—“rough little boys” (236). Diana wishes her mother would ask her not to go, but instead her mother tells her she needs to take “fancy clothes [because] [t]hey love dressing up for dinner over there” (238).
Once in Amman, Diana hardly has time for writing, as she hosts a stream of curious American friends and is herself hosted every night by one or other of her uncles, almost all of whom have returned to Jordan from America. Her relatives cook huge meals, and her uncles forcefully encourage her to eat as much as possible, competing for the title of best cook. Her single, pretty friend Tess is courted by “Bachelor-Uncle,” the one uncle who does not cook well and is extremely stingy with money and food. The one recipe he did cook—though not serve—for Diana and Tess is detailed here: “Chicken Msukhan for Richer or Poorer” (244). Another attractive friend, Audrey, is invited to dine at Uncle Nazeem’s house and is the victim of ribald laughter as she heaps praise on the “stuffed squash” dish, unaware of the innuendo associated (squash is slang for a part of the female anatomy in Arabic). The recipe for “Innuendo Squash” follows (249).
Chapter 19 Summary: “House of Crying”
Diana and Audrey are invited to dine at Great-Uncle Jimmy’s home. He is unpopular and notorious in Bud’s family for his extreme wealth and miserliness; there is also a story that he and his wife Selma keep a grandchild with disabilities locked up in their home. At the dinner, Diana and Audrey hear a terrible noise from the next room: “a cry of inexpressible pain, grief, and dread” (253). Jimmy and Selma ignore the sound and make small talk, eventually describing their treatment of a Sri Lankan maid whom they rescued from a “slave agency” (257). The girl was supposedly a useless maid—a flirt who talked “to the little one all day” (258). This is their only mention of the grandchild. The Sri Lankan girl had jumped out of a window and been returned to the agency. After this macabre tale and Uncle Jimmy’s claim that Bud is “a real son of a bitch” (261), Diana and Audrey leave. The recipe for “Spinach Stuffed Fetayer for Those In Search of Home” ends the chapter (261).
Chapter 20 Summary: “Once Upon a Time”
Bud comes to visit Diana after 10 years away from Jordan. He travels with Phineas, a childhood friend of Diana’s who still looks and acts like a teenager. The two hit it off immediately, and Bud comes to consider Phineas the American son he never had. At the many long, wild feasts Bud’s family prepares for him, it emerges that Phineas is a vegetarian, and his unpronounceable name becomes “Fattoush,” the bread salad dish whose recipe Diana gives on page 269. Diana’s apartment becomes the gathering place for the many uncles and their rainy-day parties full of araq, sweets, Monopoly, political debate, and family gossip. Diana’s sophisticated Jordanian friend Mai strings the besotted Phineas along. The recipe for “The Uncles’ favorite Mezza Platter” contains a few of the many dishes that populate these events (277).
Bud and Diana return to Yehdoudeh, the Abu-Jaber family’s ancestral desert home, accompanied by Fattoush and Mai. The fortress has gained a tourist souvenir shop and a restaurant, Kan Zaman, meaning “once upon a time” in Arabic. Bud immediately identifies with this restaurant and begins to behave like he owns it. The recipe for “Garlic-Stuffed Luxurious Leg of Lamb” follows (282).
Chapter 21 Summary: “Just a Taste”
Still in Yehdoudeh, the group is invited to dine at Bud’s cousin Haroun’s house by Haroun and his American wife, Sandra. She makes stuffed grape leaves for Fattoush but secretly puts some lamb in them, as there is a general consensus that without meat, men cannot make babies. When Fattoush realizes, he vomits and is sick the whole night. Meanwhile Mai and Fattoush have continued their flirtatious relationship, which Mai has no intention of formalizing as she wants a real “man.”
Back in Amman, Bud and Fattoush reluctantly but excitedly explain to Diana that Bud has bought part of Uncle Frankie’s house, for a highly exaggerated price, in order to open his own restaurant with Fattoush as his business partner. Diana feels responsible for this disaster, as she led Bud back to Jordan. She has a moment of reverie about serving rich Jordanian dishes with her family but then returns to reality and calls Bud for a meeting without Fattoush. Her father explains that he wants the family reunited and living in Jordan, working the restaurant there instead of spread throughout the US. He persists in his plans until Aunt Aya takes him out in her car to tour the many cheaper properties for rent, convincing him that Frankie is swindling him. Defeated, Bud returns to the apartment. Meanwhile, Fattoush explains to Diana that Bud represents the father he never had. The recipe in this chapter is for “Fatherly Fried Eggs” (303). Diana is finally inspired to start her novel.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Beyond the Land of Duty-Free”
Bud is on his way back to the US a week early following an emotional drinking party to say farewell to his brothers. Fattoush accompanies him, still plaintively trying to convince Bud to open a business with him in Jordan. At the airport, Diana and the men seek out a Jordanian restaurant. To Bud’s surprise and delight, the server is his old military colleague and great friend, Mo Kadeem. The two reminisce over a huge Jordanian feast: Mo admits he missed Jordan and so returned from his world travels, while Bud makes the astonishing claim that he, himself, is an American. The recipe follows for “Mo Kadeem’s Roasted Fish in Tahini Sauce” (315).
Chapters 18-22 Analysis
Diana’s returns to Jordan to write a novel, believing herself able to describe the Arab American experience objectively: “I’m an American, with only a few lingering suggestions of another place in my nature” (235). These “suggestions” are mainly connected to food and hospitality. She admits, however, that she is in fact returning to Jordan “to see if this place has anything at all to do with [her]” (236). Her ambivalence about the trip is clear when she wishes her mother would stop her from going, showing her continuing dependence on her parents’ direction in life and her struggle to balance her Chosen and Unchosen Identities.
The stories about the various meals in her relatives’ Jordanian homes are light-hearted and comedic and yet build up the picture of the Abu-Jaber family and Jordanian society, which Diana eventually comes to love again. The trip further develops the memoir’s depiction of The Places, People, and Feelings that Constitute Home: Huge and elaborate meals are at the center of daily life and the absolute emphasis on generosity and hospitality is key to the pride and solidarity of the family. There is also a dark side to society, however: The story about the grandchild and the Sri Lankan maid shows that cruelty and prejudice can exist amongst such seemingly positive scenes. There are many contradictions in Jordanian society, which contributes to Diana’s mixed feelings towards the culture.
The Power of Women again features in this section of the book: Aunt Aya returns with her powers of persuasion and ability to bring Bud’s impulsive nature into line. She claims to have “cured him of the family” when she puts a stop to the potentially disastrous deal with his brother (305). Her wise words about cures and poison also allow Diana the clarity to begin her novel. The American Aunt Sandra, who “began having daughters and cooking esoteric Arabic dishes as matter-of-factly as if she’d been doing it all her life” (287), is “the reigning queen of Abu-Jaber cookery” and takes it upon herself to introduce meat into Phineas’s meal for the sake of his fertility (287). Meanwhile, the cool and liberal Mai—intelligent, educated, and independent—stands out as an anomaly amongst Diana’s more domestically oriented relatives.
In contrast to Diana’s description of her mother as “the voice of sanity in our family” (237), Bud’s family has “that crazy Abu-Jaber way” (239), which creates a plethora of colorful and larger-than-life characters. Bud is no less “crazy”; despite being the only brother not to return to live in Jordan, his character remains as passionate and impulsive as ever. His visit to Jordan once again draws him into the past, and he longs to reunite his daughters in a joint venture in his homeland. Bud continues to struggle with the division of his life between two countries and two cultures, but after his brother betrays him and almost steals his life-savings, Bud finally admits that he is an American. He is on his way home.
