(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) By Alaa Al-Huwaijel
BAGHDAD, Sept 10 (KUNA) -- The delicious "Geymer" (cream) is the major component in a typical Iraqi breakfast meal, eaten with, honey, tandoor bread and hot tea.
Hardly can one find an Iraqi breakfast without the Geymer, which is eaten nationwide.
Geymer is the skimmed solidified upper layer of the simmered and then cooled off buffalo or cow's milk. It is mostly made at home by buffalo and cow breeders.
In the past, men went to care for their animals in the morning, and women carried their tempting product on wide trays, almost on daily basis, to sell it in nearby residential areas and at workers' gathering areas, at prices higher than meat and fish.
In the course of time, the Qishta, as known in Egypt and the Levant, or the kaymak in Turkish, came to be sold at shops to meet the rising demand.
Today, like most handmade industries, making Geymer has come to suffer from lack the skilled hands. This prompted a civil society organization, "Nature Iraq", to hold a training course for women to encourage them to revive the traditional industry.
The course was organized in Al-Gabaish town of Dhi Qar, famous for Buffalo breeding, and plenty of milk is produced, Nature Iraq director Jassim Al-Asadi told KUNA.
In the good old days, the industry was almost confined to breeders' women, and poor families. But in the course, organized for the first time in Iraq, women from different classes of the society have been have been learning to make it, he added.
Local women, who have long experience in the Geymer-making from the city of Ahwar, are taking care of the training.
Still the old Geymer dominates the breakfast menu of most Iraqi people, even after dozens of foreign types of cream have found their way into the country, Al-Asadi stressed.
One of the "Geymer women", Zeinab Shaid, told KUNA that she had mastered the industry only in two days, expressing hope more shops can be opened to sell the food that is so rich with nutritional elements.
A food expert, Mona Al-Bediri, told KUNA that Geymer is rich with calcium, potassium, sodium and phosphorus, besides vitamins A, C and E as well as folate or folic acid.
However, the problem with Geymer is the high rate of fat it contains.
The rate of saturated amino acids in Geymer reaches 15 percent, besides a lower percentage of monounsaturated amino acids, and unsaturated multiple amino acids, she said.
This is why the elderly and people suffering high blood pressure are always advised to avoid it, just like other fatty foods, Al-Bediri noted. (end) ahh.msa