Cuisines
Middle Eastern Cuisine
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The shared cooking traditions of the Levant, Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula, unified across many national kitchens by flatbread, olive oil, chickpeas, lamb and a mezze table of small shared dishes. Levantine cooking (the eastern Mediterranean coast) leans on olive oil, tahini and fresh herbs; Gulf and Arabian Peninsula cooking leans on rice, dried lime and slow-spiced meats reflecting historic trade with South Asia and East Africa. Religious dietary law observed across the region belongs to Divinity's own coverage; this atlas holds the foodways.
Facts
Signature TechniqueGrinding chickpeas and sesame into hummus and tahini, flatbread baking in a wood fired oven, and deep frying ground legume fritters such as falafel are hallmark techniques. 1 Origin RegionThe Levant and Arabian Peninsula, spanning the eastern Mediterranean and West Asia. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Held Differently
North African Cuisine, Cuisines Levantine Arab cuisine historically recognized North African, or Maghrebi, cooking as its own distinct tradition, naming couscous moghrabiyyeh, the North African dish, rather than treating the two as interchangeable.
Expresses Tradition
Features Dish
Uses Ingredient
Cumin, Ingredients Cumin is native to the Levant and remains a defining Middle Eastern spice.
Sources
1. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Harold McGee, Scribner, 2004technique discussion: legume pastes and flatbread
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014
The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014entry: Middle Eastern cookery
The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014Expresses Tradition: Spice Trade Traditions, s.v. Spice Trade
The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014Expresses Tradition: Halal (Islamic Dietary Law), entry: Islamic dietary laws
Larousse Gastronomique
Hamlyn, 2009Uses Ingredient: Wheat, entry: Wheat
Larousse Gastronomique
Hamlyn, 2009Uses Ingredient: Olive Oil, entry: Olive Oil
Couscous (Encyclopedia of Food and Culture)
Teresa de Castro, Charles Scribner's Sons, via Encyclopedia.comAssociated With: North African CuisineView the Source Cumin (Wikipedia)
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