These pictures were taken by a friend, and fellow USDA-employee, James Bright. He was on the outskirts of a town one day at a farm village, and came upon these women baking bread in the traditional way! Of course, with the daily power outages, baking in the "old way" is almost the only way to bake.
The bread in Iraq is wonderful, and like most breads served in the Middle East, is a traditional style of "flat bread". In Iraq, the bread is known as "khoubiz" or "khubz". There are probabluy other variations on the English spelling. If you google on "arabic flat bread", "lebanese flat bread" or "syrian flat bread", you'll find a recipe.
The first photo shows a preparation table where several balls of dough are sitting ready to be rolled out and placed in the oven. On the right side of the photo you can see the finished product!
Look at the second photo, it shows the bread baking in a traditional oven....very unique!!! The dough is rolled or patted out into a thin, round shape. Then it is simply "slapped" into the oven and up on the near-vertical oven wall!!! It's left there for just a few minutes, probably around 5 minutes, and it's ready to go!!! These traditional ovens use wood or charcoal for building the fire. I understand that many are fired with propane.
This bread is wonderful and chewy with a great taste! We all look forward to the opportunity to get some authentic Iraqi flat bread.
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