DOHA: The latest craze in cash-rich Qatari society is for traditional local and Arabic cuisines prepared in home kitchens which are, depending on popularity, more expensive than continental dishes sold by some star hotels.
As the trend catches on and demand for homemade food grows, home kitchens selling Qatari, Lebanese, Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian cuisines have been mushrooming in and out of Doha.
With this is growing public call for authorities to declare home kitchens as an organised business that must be licensed and subjected to health and safety rules. “Why spare them when they are a business?” wondered Zainab Khashshaan. “Home kitchens should be legalised, regularly monitored and their prices must be fixed.”
Zainab told Al Sharq yesterday that many Qatari households, especially women, do not have much faith in restaurants and doubt their hygienic conditions and prefer food prepared in homes for sale. “The trend is catching up in the community,” he said. Families promoting such food are largely Qataris and publicise their cuisines on social media, including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Some of them make attractive offers, including discounts. Home delivery services are an accepted feature of the business.
“They don’t have a catering licence and still their food is quite expensive,” Zainab said.
A working woman, also a Qatari, said without giving her name that she once picked three dishes from such a kitchen and she paid QR200, but the food was bad.
“People mostly order such food for parties as restaurant food is out of vogue and these cuisines are in.”
But Moza Al Mannai, yet another Qatari woman, told the daily she didn’t agree that homemade food that was catching up as a trend in the Qatari community was bad in quality or taste.
“It is good food, quite tasty and being promoted on the social media. I am all for it,” she said. “I support such ventures. I bought cake and sweets from a home kitchen once and I loved them.”
An advantage with these personalised caterers is that they have a home delivery service as well. But for a party or large quantity of food, one must order a day or two in advance, said Al Mannai.
Food prepared in home kitchens, as said earlier, is quite expensive, but those backing the home catering industry say they must be encouraged to support those families financially.
The Peninsula
