Hummus, also spelled hommus or houmous, is a Middle Eastern dip, spread, or savory dish made from cooked, mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. The standard garnish in the Middle East includes olive oil, a few whole chickpeas, parsley, and paprika.
A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe.
Falafel is a deep-fried ball or patty-shaped fritter of Egyptian origin, featuring in Middle Eastern cuisine, particularly Levantine cuisines, and is made from broad beans, ground chickpeas, or both.
Mujaddara is a dish consisting of cooked lentils together with groats, generally rice, and garnished with sautéed onions. It is especially popular in the Levant.
Musakhan, also known as muhammar, is a Palestinian dish composed of roasted chicken baked with onions, sumac, allspice, saffron, and fried pine nuts served over taboon bread. Originating in the Tulkarm and Jenin area, musakhan is often considered the national dish of Palestine. The dish is particularly popular among Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and Jordanians. It is also eaten by Arabs and Druze in Galilee, especially around Iksal and Sandala, and in the Triangle. The dish can be found in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan as well. The dish owes its name to the practice of Palestinian farmers to reheat old taboon bread and make it taste better.
Maqluba is a traditional Levantine dish that is popular across Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. It consists of meat, rice, and fried vegetables placed in a pot which is flipped upside down when served, hence the name.
Claudia Roden is an Egyptian-born British cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist of Sephardi/Mizrahi descent. She is best known as the author of Middle Eastern cookbooks including A Book of Middle Eastern Food, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food and Arabesque—Sumptuous Food from Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon.
Knafeh is a traditional Arabic dessert, made with spun pastry called kataifi, soaked in a sweet, sugar-based syrup called attar, and typically layered with cheese, or with other ingredients such as clotted cream, pistachio or nuts, depending on the region. It is popular in the Middle East.
Joan Nathan is an American cookbook author and newspaper journalist. She has produced TV documentaries on the subject of Jewish cuisine. She was a co-founder of New York's Ninth Avenue Food Festival under then-Mayor Abraham Beame. The Jerusalem Post has called her the "matriarch of Jewish cooking".
Yotam Assaf Ottolenghi is an Israeli-born British chef, restaurateur, and food writer. Alongside Sami Tamimi, he is the co-owner of nine delis and restaurants in London and Bicester Village and the author of several bestselling cookery books, including Ottolenghi: The Cookbook (2008), Plenty (2010), Jerusalem (2012) and Simple (2018).
James Kenji López-Alt is an American chef and food writer. His first book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, became a critical and commercial success, charting on the New York Times Bestseller list and winning the 2016 James Beard Foundation Award for the best General Cooking cookbook. The cookbook expanded on López-Alt's "The Food Lab" column on the Serious Eats blog. López-Alt is known for using the scientific method in his cooking to improve popular American recipes and to explain the science of cooking.
Patricia Jinich is a Mexican chef, TV personality, cookbook author, educator, and food writer. She is best known for her James Beard Award-winning and Emmy-nominated public television series Pati's Mexican Table and her James Beard Award-winning PBS primetime docuseries La Frontera with Pati Jinich. Her first cookbook, also titled Pati's Mexican Table, was published in March 2013, her second cookbook, Mexican Today, was published in April 2016, and her third cookbook, Treasures of the Mexican Table, was published in November 2021.
Yasmin Khan is a British author, broadcaster and human rights campaigner. Her work covers food, travel and politics and her critically acclaimed books, The Saffron Tales and Zaitoun, use everyday stories to challenge stereotypes of the Middle East.
Mary Berg is a Canadian television host, author and cook, who rose to fame as the winner of the third season of MasterChef Canada. She has been the host of two television cooking shows, Mary's Kitchen Crush and Mary Makes It Easy, and the daytime talk show, The Good Stuff with Mary Berg. She has released three cookbooks, Kitchen Party,Well Seasoned and In Mary's Kitchen.
Alison E. Roman is an American food writer, chef and internet personality. She is best known for her viral recipes, such as #TheStew and #TheCookies, which were widely shared on social media platforms. Roman has held senior positions at Bon Appétit and Buzzfeed Food, and served as a columnist for New York TimesCooking. Roman is the author of several cookbooks, including the New York Times BestsellerNothing Fancy (2019).
Joudie Kalla is a Palestinian-British chef and food writer. She is the author of two prizewinning cookbooks, Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen (2016), and Baladi: A Celebration of Food from Land and Sea (2018), and has featured in venues like The New York Times,The Guardian, and Al Jazeera.
Gastronationalism or culinary nationalism is the use of food and its history, production, control, preparation and consumption as a way of promoting nationalism and national identity. It may involve arguments between two or more regions or countries about whether a particular dish or preparation is claimed by one of those regions or countries and has been appropriated or co-opted by the others.
A significant facet of the Arab–Israeli conflict deals with a cultural struggle over national cuisines. Foods like falafel and hummus, which originated in Middle Eastern cuisine, have historically been politicized in general expressions of gastronationalism throughout the region. The development of Israeli cuisine occurred largely through the mixing of Jewish diasporic cuisines with Levantine cuisine, including Palestinian cuisine. This effort aided the effective definition of the national identity of Israel as that of a melting pot, but simultaneously prompted claims of cultural appropriation, particularly with regard to the Palestinian people. More specifically, critics of Israeli cuisine's incorporation of dishes that are traditionally seen as part of Arab cuisine assert that Israel lacks recognition for their Palestinian aspects, disqualifying the process as one of cultural diffusion. Opposition to Israeli cuisine in the Arab world revolves around the accusation that dishes of Palestinian origin, or other Arab dishes to which there have been significant Palestinian contributions, are presented by Israel in a way that suppresses or omits the role of the Palestinians in their development.
The cuisine of Jerusalem reflects the long history of Jerusalem as a crossroads of cultures and religions. Millennia of trade, conquest, and migration have resulted in a unique fusion of culinary traditions, with significant influences from Jewish and Levantine Arab cuisine.
Fadi Kattan is a Palestinian chef, hotelier, and cookbook author.
