Our banquet consisted of a small piece of mutton, the water in which it was stewed, some bread, and a little butter and fat. No sooner was the dinner set upon the ground than a scramble took place. Every one crowded round the earthen bowl; the Cacheff [kashif] was the first to dip in his hand and immediately the rest followed his example. We four contrived to keep as close together as possible, that we might all eat out of the same side of the dish and by this means have some chance of a cleaner meal. The Cacheff seeing that we stood no chance against his people, who at last plunged their hands into the dish from all quarters, politely picked out the most fleshy parts which he distinguished from the bones with a squeeze of his fingers, placed them on the sleeve of his gown and continued to eat until the bowl was nearly emptied. When all had done eating he presented each of us with a piece of the fleshy parts he had reserved as a compliment, which we gladly devoured…
-Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids in Egypt and Nubia, Giovanni Belzoni, 1820
It’s called allofeeding and sometimes involves an adult penguin regurgitating directly into its chick’s food pouch. But when this happens around a bowl of goat mashwy in Dar al-Kababish, it is more like when a blue jay passes a live worm beak-to-beak to another, even though squeezing a chunk of mutton with one’s fingers is more like pre-masticating it. So that would be an act of regurgitation, not live sharing. And I’ve never seen it happen around a campfire, only in the hut of a particularly generous host.
Whenever we crouched down at the aseeda bowl it was everyone-for-himself, not tag-team. No meat in the milaah but plenty of fried onion quarters, the next best thing, to lunge for. I was invited once to Khartoum’s Meridien Hotel restaurant by the toy importer Ali al-Haj, and he led me around the buffet table pointing out each platter saying, Kul, kul, lahma laziz. Eat, eat, delicious meat. He didn’t fill a plate for himself and when I asked if he would be eating with me, he said, No, this table is just for you. Later I remembered that day at every meal when on the trail Steve and Ned tried to crowd me out of my side of the lukhma, the grub.