UAE heritage shines at Dubai marine fest

The UAE is hosting a series of traditional dhow sailing, rowing races, heritage events and activities, over the course of the first Dubai Marine and Heritage Festival 2013 festival, putting the spotlight on UAE’s marine heritage.
The purpose of the festival is to deliver an educational and cultural message to the new generation. It aims to direct their interest to the valuable marina heritage in which it holds strong symbols of persistence, goodness and challenge.
The festival revives the unique marina history of the Gulf region through various activities and events that are organized on Dubai beaches. Additionally, the festival, which will be organized annually, will be in synchronization with the final rounds for marina seasonal races.
The activities include tailoring the sale ship competition, a national products exhibition, scooping pearls from oysters, coastal crafts, popular local brands, Arabic hospitality and tourists guides speaking in over 12 languages, including English, French, Dutch and Russian.
The festival embraces local seafood and the region’s distinctive cultural and social concept of hospitality.
Also participating in the festival are Emirati bakery and local restaurants such as AlMultqa, which is owned by Saif Harib AlFalahi, an Emirati citizen with a great passion for Gulf marina history.
Arab News spoke to AlFalahi about his contribution to the marina heritage in the Gulf.
“The Gulf local food is one of the world’s most delicious cuisines. Unfortunately, it is not properly presented, positioned or supported.
I have been working in this field for the past 30 years and I am still learning about it; it is a very rich culture which my mother, whom I believe was a master chef, introduced me to, and since then I have been passionately working on providing the best of it,” he said.
On his restaurant’s growth plans, he said: “I will definitely not stop where I am in my culture and cuisine journey and I will continue to grow in every possible way to create awareness of the amazing local food my country is offering. I wish we can see an exhibition for local food at the level of the Gulf countries level. Not only it will put our cuisine on the international culinary map, but Emiratis will know about Saudis, Kuwaitis will know about Bahrainis and so on. It will create a heritage network that can actually change the perception of local food, especially in the minds of the youth.”
The festival is running from April 13-20 in various locations such as the Jumeira Beach, The Heritage Village and Dubai National Marine Club.