Heritage
The Kharraz: Making Shoes by Hand in Old Kuwait
Goat and cow leather cut, worked and stitched with heavy thread. The awl, the shears, the needle and the light hammer, and what happened when imports arrived.
Heritage
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Heritage
Who Settled Kuwait First: The Founding Families
Al-Khalifa, Al-Jalahma, Al-Zayed, Al-Roumi and others arrived from Najd, southern Iraq and Persia, and in 1752 they chose Sabah bin Jaber to govern.
Heritage
Margoog: Desert Flavour on a Kuwaiti Table
Thin dough pulled by hand and dropped straight into the broth with lamb, courgette, pumpkin and aubergine. Why it belongs to winter, and how it reached restaurant menus.
Heritage
Folk Medicine in Kuwait: Who Treated People Before the Clinics
The attar, the midwife and the bonesetter, a pharmacy of herbs, and remedies that were sometimes harsh. A historical account, not health advice.
Heritage
Old Jahra: From Palm Groves to a Battlefield
A walled oasis of date, lemon and pomegranate gardens where city families went in summer, and the caravan stop on the road north.
Heritage
The Saffar and the Haddad: Two Trades That Equipped a Household
Coffee pots and cooking vessels beaten and engraved in copper; doors, locks, farm tools and window grilles in iron. Where they worked, and what ended them.
Heritage
Gers Ogaily: The Cake That Marks the Occasion
Flour, egg, cardamom and saffron under toasted sesame, baked golden and served with coffee. Where the name may come from, and why it is still made at home.
Heritage
How Oil Was Found in Kuwait: Burgan, 1938, and the First Cargo in 1946
The 1934 concession, a discovery held up by the war, and a town built to English plans for the men who worked the field.
Heritage
Kohl, Oud and Bakhoor: A Kuwaiti Woman’s Daily Ritual
Ithmid stone roasted and ground at home, a scent blended by hand and kept in a small bottle, and a censer passed around the room. What each one meant.
Heritage
The Mubarakiya School: Where Formal Education in the Gulf Started
Before it there were the kuttab rooms. The 1910 proposal, the opposition it met, the subjects it added, and the names that came out of it.
Heritage
Machboos: The Dish at the Centre of a Kuwaiti Table
The name comes from pressing. What goes into the fry, why the grain must stay separate, and how the lamb, chicken and fish versions differ.
Heritage
The Inner Souk and Sikkat Anza: Where the Capital Kept Its Pulse
Mud and coral shops under palm-trunk roofing, a cloth seller, a perfumer, a goldsmith and the date women. And a lane named, it is said, for a herd that passed through it every morning.