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One of the most popular stalls at the Global Village, especially with Arab visitors, is the Ghada Pickles and Spices stall in the Bahrain pavilion.
The Bahraini company specialises in home-made pickles and spices that are commonly used in Arabic cuisine. "We have been coming to the Global Village for the last seven years and our products are much appreciated by people here.
"Our loyal customers always come to the Global Village to stock up for the year. In fact, we were completely sold out in the first three weeks since the Global Village opened and are waiting for new stocks to arrive," said a salesman.
Delicious
Ghada's delicious fare includes a variety of cheese dips garnished with zatar, carrots, chillies or olives and a wide range of achars such as mango, lemon, mixed vegetable, green and red chilli, eggplant, tomato, gherkin, carrot, onions and garlic.
Some of the exotic recipes include pickled potatoes, mushrooms, okra, chickpeas and even a lentil achar. Ghada also has the popular makdoos, fish meyhawa, prawn pickle and tring, a sweet marmalade made from lemon zest. And they also manufacture a range of spice blends and cooking powders including fish, prawn, garlic and chilli powders.
Sweet date pickle
"Among the new products we have brought this year is a sweet date pickle, a cheese and eggplant makdoos and a meat and cheese matadella," said the salesman inviting me to taste these items.
There was a huge crowd of women around the stall eagerly waiting their turn to taste the array of pickles laid out on the counter. The salesman offered them pieces of bread to dip into the flavoured cheeses and plastic spoons to check out the wide variety of sweet and spicy pickles.
Special taste
"Ghada spices and pickles have a very special taste. I use the spice mixes daily in my cooking and my whole family enjoys the cheese dips for breakfast and we love to have the pickles with rice.
"These products are not available in the supermarkets here, so I have come from Ajman especially to buy my supply of pickles and spices for the year. I will also send some to my sister who lives in Canada," said Mariam Al Redha.
"The products are reasonably priced at Dh25 and Dh30 and I love the fact that they invite us to taste the products before we buy them so that we can be sure of our purchases," she added.
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