Falafel

Falafel (pronounced /fəˈlɑːfəl/; Arabic: فلافل‎ About this sound falāfil (help·info) Egyptian and Sudanese Arabic, طعمية Ta'miyya) is a fried ball or patty made from spiced chickpeas and/or fava beans. Originally from Egypt, falafel is a popular form of street food or fast food in the Middle East.

The Arabic word "falafel" (falāfil) may be the plural of فلفل (filfil) 'pepper', but more relevantly, it is an adjective for fluffy/crunchy things, as in رز مفلفل (roz mfalfel), a kind of cooked rice, and شعر مفلفل (shar'r mfalfel), curly hair. It is also transliterated felafel and filafil.

Falafel is usually served in a pita-like bread called lafa, either inside the bread, which acts as a pocket, or wrapped in a flat bread. The falafel balls, whole or crushed, may be topped with salads, pickled vegetables and hot sauce, and drizzled with tahini-based sauces. Falafel balls may also be eaten alone as a snack or served as part of a mezze. During Ramadan, they are sometimes eaten as part of an iftar, the meal which breaks the daily fast after sunset.

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Hummus

Hummus (a transliteration of the Arabic: حمّص‎; also spelled hamos, houmous, hommos, hommus, hummos, hummous or humus; see romanization of Arabic) is a Levantine Arab dip or spread made from cooked, mashed chickpeas, blended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic. It is a popular food throughout the Middle East, and in the United States.

Etymology – The word comes from Arabic: حمّص‎ḥummuṣ[2] 'chickpeas'. Like other Arabic loanwords, its spelling in English is inconsistent. The earliest use of the word hummus in English noted by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was in 1955.[3] Among the common spellings for this word as transliterated into English are hummus, hommos and hoummos.

Historical Origins – Many cuisine-related sources carry forward a folklore which describes hummus as one of the oldest known prepared foods with a long history in the Middle East stretching back to antiquity, but its historical origins are unknown. The historical enigma is such that the origins of hummus-bi-tahini could be much more recent than is widely believed. One of the earliest verifiable descriptions of hummus comes from 18th-century Damascus and the same source claims it was unknown elsewhere.

Meanwhile some cookbooks repeat the legend that hummus was first prepared in the 12th century by Saladin. Sources such as Cooking in Ancient Civilizations by Cathy K. Kaufman carry speculative recipes for an ancient Egyptian hummus, substituting vinegar for lemon juice, but acknowledge we do not know how the Egyptians ate their chick-peas. Similarly, no recipe for hummus has been identified among the many books on cooking surviving from ancient Rome.

Charles Perry, co-author of Medieval Arab Cookery notes that owing to hummus bi tahina being an everyday staple, and because of the lack of Arab recipe books published between the 14th and 20th centuries, no recipes documenting this food's early ingredients have been found. He says the nearest medieval example recorded in a 13th century Arab cookbook, Kitab Wasf al-Atima al-Mutada is Hummus kasa, which substitutes vinegar for lemon, includes extra herbs and adds walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds and pistachios.

History of the Ingredients – Chickpeas and sesame, the crops from which hummus's main ingredients are taken, were known and cultivated in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds. Chickpeas are hummus's principal ingredient, and have been a human food item for over 10,000 years.

The chickpea was used as a food item in Palestine before 4000 BC, was one of the earliest crops cultivated in Mesopotamia and was a common street dish in ancient Rome; indeed the famous Roman orator, Cicero, was named for an ancestor who had a wart on his nose shaped like a chickpea. Archeological evidence identifies chickpeas in the Sumerian diet before 2500 BC. They are noted in a 13th century work by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi of Persia for a "simple dish" of meat, pulses and spices. It is unknown whether chickpeas were commonly mashed in any of these cultures.

Tahini (sesame paste) likewise lacks any clear historical context. Sesame was grown as a crop in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian gardens and is mentioned by Columella. It was common in Roman and Persian kitchens in the form of sesame oil but not as the tahini paste of hummus-bi-tahini.

Other ingredients are used in sundry recipes of hummus-bi-tahini.

The olive originated in Syria and Palestine, where it was being cultivated by the fourth millennium BC. A variety may have been indigenous to Crete, where olives were being cultivated by 2500 BC. The Bible mentions olive oil many times and it was exported to places such as Egypt. Several Roman writers indicate that salt was used in extracting the oil.

Garlic was grown in the gardens of King Merodach-Baladan II of Babylon and probably was in Greece by the early Bronze Age.

The lemon was last to arrive in the Middle East and Mediterranean world, originating in India. However, depictions of lemons have been found at Pompeii and Tusculum, so this fruit must have reached the Roman world, at least as a luxury import, by the first century.

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Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh (Arabic: تبولة‎; also tabouleh or tabouli) is a Levantine salad dish. Traditionally a mountain dish from the Eastern Mediterranean, it has become one of the most popular Middle Eastern salads.

Its primary ingredients are finely chopped parsley, bulgur, mint, tomato, spring onion, and other herbs with lemon juice, olive oil and various seasonings, generally including black pepper and sometimes cinnamon and allspice.

In the Arab world, but particularly the Greater Syrian region, it is usually served as part of the mezze, and is served with romaine lettuce. In Iraq, the dish is considered native to Mosul, whose cuisine is tightly linked to that of Syria. The Lebanese use more parsley than bulgur wheat in their dish.

A Turkish variation of the dish is known as kısır, while a similar Armenian dish is known as eetch. In Cyprus, where the dish was introduced by the Lebanese, it is known as tambouli.

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