It is beyond explanation why I often awake in the dead of the night with odd memories or curious questions about random subjects, some which can send me scrolling through the internet for verification and answers before being able to settle back to sleep. A few weeks ago, at that surreal point between three and four A.M., my mind started spinning out flashbacks, finally landing on a visual image of Uncle Moustache.

Around the mid-1970’s I found myself temporarily living an unsettled existence with my then-boyfriend and three dogs, dwelling in a rather seedy hostel down a road outside Damascus Gate, which is on the north wall of the Old City of Jerusalem.

This setting hosted some subterraneous, occasionally scary and potentially dangerous goings-ons, which provided a spin-off for a number of bizarre situations, the finer details of which I will not be sharing here. Breaking glass and loud yelling in the middle of the night, someone giving or receiving a beating, a few police raids. Fingers of hashish furtively being sold outside in the street. At night you would lock your door and not come out until morning, not even to use the toilet down the hallway.

Although some of the particulars were written down in an old notebook where those wild experiences might be rediscovered someday, most likely those stories will be lost to the ages (like the time I opted not to sell my blood to the blood-buyer who popped out from an alley, and ended up getting paid to be an extra in a supernatural horror film instead).

But again, all that stuff is not for this post.

If you are interested in knowing a little bit about then-boyfriend (aka “Hikey the Lover”) and how ending up in this inconvenient situation makes sense given the parties involved, there is a vignette on “Hikey” that can be found here (Would You Like Some Mice With That? 5/18/2011). If you are interested in reading about one of the dogs (a sweet yellow desert-bred Saluki that was mine) there is more about her here (The Saluki in the Floor 1/30/2012).

This photo I found online was pretty much what the daily action looked like just outside the walls during that time.

And here is a photo from 1912, just to appreciate this historical, awesome gate.

Since we did not have cooking facilities where we were during that period, it was necessary to subsist on street food. Breakfasts consisted of hummus bi tahini, pita sprinkled with za’atar or sumac, chai and nana (mint tea), muddy Turkish coffee, and hot glasses of sahleb/salep – a milky drink made of orchid tubers, which was carried on the backs of vendors in big brass teapots. On a chilly winter morning you could wrap your hands around the steaming glass for heat. The sahleb was warm, sweet, and good – inside and out.

Later on in the day, street meals might consist of falafel, shawarma (spicy sliced lamb) shashlik (kabobs) fresh bread or bagels, along with lemonade, tamarind or carob juice from a juice vendor. For a special treat there was always a piece of baklava.

Memories of these foods bring up olfactory, visual, and auditory images as well. Men sitting on low stools playing shesh besh (like backgammon). The music of Oum Kalthoum blaring out of staticky radios everywhere.

Just inside Damascus Gate, on a road that goes into the residential part of the Muslim Quarter, was the shop of Joseph the baker. You had to go down two or three steps to get into the dark stone room where his oven was. There he baked bread for sale and for people who brought in their own prepared dough or food to cook in their own pots. You could sprinkle extra salt or cumin on the bread he made if you wanted to. It was also one of the only places open very late at night.

Women would arrive laden with large trays of unbaked pita, which would go into the oven and come out in fragrant, puffy pillows, then fall flat again. I could have watched this for hours; after all these years I still retain a beautiful mind-painting in my head of Palestinian women in black dresses, juxtaposed against his glowing oven in that warm, dark, stone room as they waited for their breads to bake. One time in the after-hours, we supplied Joseph with the ingredients to make a pizza, which he did – and then as it finished, he unexpectedly broke an egg on top of it with a final flourish.

I’m taking the long road here, but will be getting to the point shortly.

This rambling stroll through the memories of 1970’s old city street food continued on, heading maybe a five or six minute walk slightly east of Damascus Gate to Herod’s Gate (Bāb az-Zāhra). This neighborhood was a lot less commercial and more residential. This is pretty much what it looked like back then,

and here are some views to share that were taken more than half a century earlier, just because I love the timelessness.

Just a short way inside Herod’s Gate was (and still is at the time of this writing) a restaurant where the main meal of the day would be had – a meal which was both affordable and could really (and necessarily) fill you up. The shop was called “Uncle Moustache.” Inexplicably awakening to this odd memory is where my mind went down a labyrinth of rabbit holes, recalling Uncle Moustache (and then all the rest above). So there I sat, awake in bed in the dark during those surreal hours, time where I should have been deep in REM sleep; instead the light from my cell phone casting shadows across the room as I scrolled, looking for the past. I did manage to locate a few pictures and comments – thankful for others who also remembered that place frozen in time and shared on the internet – that, in addition to a wonderful archival collection of the Old City, some of which I cropped here for the sake of space and detail.

To greatly summarize, three brothers from the Badr family of Jerusalem (Yassin, Ahmed, and Mohammed) opened a falafel shop in the early 1960’s, which they named after Ahmed’s huge, unmistakable, impressive moustache.

Their shop became somewhat renowned by word of mouth in the 1960’s and 70’s as sort of a hippie gathering place among backpackers, people stopping en route to and from India, young travelers staying in hostels, or kibbutz volunteers on sojourns and holiday to Jerusalem. That – and I guess in this case – a couple of displaced souls with three dogs and very little money. The big draw to this shop was about many things; the delicious food, the affordable prices, the atmosphere, the scene – but also about the congeniality and kindness of Uncle Moustache himself.

Aside from the wonderful falafel and hummus, they used to serve ample, affordable and delicious full chicken dinners, which could really fill you up and become the main meal of the day. There were a few tables and chairs placed outside the door, where we could sit with the dogs and catch the social scene.

As I said, Uncle Moustache was friendly and generous, a distinctive character with a significant belly and a serious moustache – a convivial presence. If people didn’t have much money, he might add a little extra hummus to your plate, and had been known on occasion to accept a story or a song to cover the cost of the meal. He would save his leftover meat scraps for our dogs, which we could collect at the end of the day. This was a big deal, as buying dogfood was not an option at the time and they lived on Uncle Moustache’s “doggy bag” remnants. That, and a large, daily fresh bread which cost one lira on the street.

When I came across some of these photos, my immediate thought was to reach out to those who were there – “Hey, do remember that guy?” But Hikey the Lover, the dogs, and a few other people I knew from that time and place who would have recalled those days and said “Wow! Yeah!” have passed on long ago. One of the things about aging is eventually there are fewer and fewer people left who can bear witness to our experiences. It appears the place is still in existence, although they don’t serve those chicken dinners anymore. While not certain, I believe at this writing his nephew is running the falafel shop, which has gotten some enthusiastic reviews.

So concludes a small segment of the circuitous road which led to Uncle Moustache – or perhaps it was the brief memory of Uncle Moustache that sent me down some avenues of recollection – as I sat in the dark, in the middle of a cold winter night, reliving those strange and interesting times.

~*~