Mansaf  Mansaf () is a traditional Arab dish made of lamb cooked in a sauce of fermented dried yogurt and served with rice or bulgur. It is a popular dish eaten throughout the Levant. It is considered the national dish of Jordan, and can also be found in Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, as well as Palestine and Israel. The name of the dish comes from the term "large tray" or "large dish". The original pastoralist Bedouin mansaf underwent significant changes in the 20th century. The dish is said to originally have been made with simply meat (camel or lamb), meat broth or ghee (clarified butter) and bread. Following the popularization of rice in northern Jordan in the 1920s, rice gradually was introduced into the dish, at first mixed with bulgur, and later on its own, until the dish reached its modern incarnation of being based on white rice. Similarly, the jamid sauce is a recent development, as the Bedouins did not historically feature jamid in their cooked dishes until their modern sedentarization. Jameed is a hard dry yogurt that is prepared by the boiling of sheep or goat's milk, which is then left to dry and ferment. The mixture is later kept in a fine woven cheesecloth to make a thick yogurt. Salt is added daily to thicken the yogurt even more for a few days, which then becomes very dense and is shaped into round balls. The city of Al-Karak in Jordan has a reputation for producing the highest quality of jameed. A jameed broth is prepared and the pieces of lamb are cooked in it. The dish is served on a large platter with a layer of flatbread (markook or shrak) topped with rice and then meat, garnished with almonds and pine nuts, and then the creamy jameed sauce is poured on top of the dish. Mansaf is associated with a traditional Jordanian culture based on an agro-pastoral lifestyle in which meat and yogurt are readily available. Mansaf is served on special occasions such as weddings, births and graduations, or to honor a guest, and on major holidays such as Eid ul-Fitr, Eid ul-Adha, Christmas, Easter and Jordan's Independence Day. It is traditionally eaten collectively from a large platter in the Bedouin and rural style, standing around the platter with the left hand behind the back and using the right hand instead of utensils. Since mansaf was originally popular among Bedouins, much of the traditions that they used with the dish still exist today.