Arab Culture Enters the Guinness World Records

posted on: Jun 22, 2010

Arabs danced their way into the Guinness Book of World Records over the weekend and are now set on baking their way in with the biggest pasty dish in the world.

Some 4475 Lebanese Canadians danced their way into the record book by forming the longest Dabke chain ever assembled, an Arab dance, in the Montreal, Canada Saturday night while a Palestinian confectioner is set to bake the biggest pastry dish in the world.

After five minutes of fancy footwork dancing to the tune of the folk song “Lebanon reborn again” they made history.

Kate White, a Guinness representative, registered the colossal count, noting the ethnic variety of the dancers who came from Asian, white and Arab backgrounds to join the multicultural event organized by students for the annual Lebanese festival.

Dabke is a distinctive group dance that originated in the Levant and is common in Iraq. It involves intricate steps and occasional hopping as dancers hold hands and form a tight line.

As the dancers collected their accolades a Palestinian confectioner across the world was set to bake the biggest Arab pastry dish in the world.

A Palestinian baker in Nablus in the West Bank hopes to bake his way into Guinness with a giant kunafa, a sweetened semolina pastry stuffed with cream cheese or ashta, a creamy fruit, and drizzled with rosewater honey.

The sweet will be 75 meters (246 feet) long and two meters (7 feet) wide and will weigh 1,350 kilogram, (2,976 Ibs) the independent news agency Maan reported Sunday.

The giant kunafa is set to be baked in mid-July in time for the shopping festival, said Muhannad Ar-Rabi, director of the Palestinian Company for Real Estate Development and Construction, who will overlook the project. He added that necessary documents from Guinness were ready.

The Kunafa project will cost a whopping $15,000 and is expected to feed around 6,000 people. Its massive ingredients include 600 kilograms (1,322 Ibs) of white cheese, 300 kilograms (661Ibs) of sugar and six tins of cooking fat.

Al-Arabiya