THE SWEET VALLEY
Moza Almatrooshi’s landscape-to-table experiences were inspired by a visit to Wadi Al Helo.
By INDIA STOUGHTON
Photograph by Siddarth Siva
For years, Moza Almatrooshi drove past Wadi Al Helo. The rugged valley, with its rocky hiking trails, native wildlife, verdant farmland, and ancient archaeological sites, is in the Hajar Mountains, along what used to be the primary route from Sharjah to Kalba. Whenever she had visitors, she would drive them through the desert and across the mountains to the east coast, passing Wadi Al Helo along the way. But it wasn’t until a new road to Kalba opened, bypassing the area, that she felt a sudden pull to visit. Her first trip turned out to be a life-changing experience.
Born in Dubai and based in Sharjah, Almatrooshi studied art in Dubai and London before training to be a chef. “My art practice had two main strands: one that was looking at the landscape as a symbol and metaphor; and one that was looking at food as a symbol and metaphor,” she says. In Wadi Al Helo, where the rugged landscape conceals a freshwater spring that has sustained crops for centuries, those interests intersect. The archaeological site, which dates back to the Bronze Age, features ancient petroglyphs depicting native animals including camels, ibex, and the now-extinct Syrian wild donkey. Nearby, a restored Islamic watchtower and traces of other fortifications attest to centuries of settlement and cultivation.
A landscape of arid mountainsides and fertile farmland, the area has been farmed by the Mazroui tribe for the past century. The wide variety of crops they grow, including palm, olive, citrus and pomegranate trees and a range of seasonal fruits and vegetables, proves the fertility of the land, which is also reflected in its name. “The name means the ‘Fresh Valley’, so it signals the freshness of ground water,” Almatrooshi says. “I like that play of words, because the same word can mean sweet and also handsome.”
That first experience of tramping along Wadi Al Helo’s winding trails inspired the artist to embark on a long-held dream. In 2023, she collaborated with local guide Ahmad Jalil, founder of YRZ Adventures, to organise the first event hosted by Ballad, her events-based art and culinary studio that combines visits to natural sites across the UAE with custom menus inspired by the landscape.
For each Ballad event, Almatrooshi creates a whimsical menu inspired by the physical landmarks that punctuate the excursion and made using local seasonal ingredients, or, when seasonal produce is scarce, ingredients chosen to evoke aspects of the landscape. Building on her love of mythology and magical realism, she weaves fictional narratives inspired by the history and agriculture of the sites, encouraging guests to engage with their surroundings. “I tell guests every time we go to Wadi Al Helo that everything Ahmed says is fact, and everything I say is fiction,” she says.
To celebrate Ballad’s first anniversary last November, she created a menu of unique desserts, including one called the Handsome Camel—delicate millefeuille biscuits shaped like the petroglyphs carved into the rocks and paired with Omani halwa and orange-blossom cream. “For the camel dessert, the story is that the petroglyphs keep peeling themselves away from the rock and we have to catch them and eat them,” she says. “The larger fictionalised narrative is that Wadi Al Helo is a valley that needs saving because it’s slowly turning into dessert.”
Almatrooshi uses humour to encourage reflection on sustainable food production and the possibilities of seasonal eating. Its beauty and serenity aside, Wadi Al Helo serves as a reminder that food security has always been paramount in the region, she says. “The towers suggest that people have been protecting those farms for centuries. It’s their livelihood, their sustenance, and has obviously been taken so seriously that they have to guard it with their lives.Those bits of history are really important because they reaffirm the case that I try to make to the people who participate in these experiences, that the land is abundant if we just listen to its seasons.”
