One traveler, who toured that area of the world before it became commercialized, wrote this description of how evening banquets at rich guys’ houses went in 1894. He said,
“…entertainment is a public affair. The gateway of the court, and the door… stand open… A long, low table, or more often merely the great wooden dishes, are placed along the center of the room, and low couches on either side, on which the guests, placed in order of their rank, recline, leaning on their left elbow, with their feet turned away from the table.
“Servants stand behind the couches …Behind the servants the loungers of the village crowd in, nor are they thought obtrusive in so doing.” (H.B. Tristam, 1894)