A Hundred And One Middle Eastern Delights: Recipes from Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria etc.

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There is seemingly not enough you can do with a chickpea. Those craving sweets can enjoy the pink and blue sugared edomi , which are dry roasted chickpeas. I prefer them salted than sweet. Beyond the crunch, there is the comforting pasty quality. For an even bigger sweet tooth, raha , a range of rose and orange blossom flower infused Turkish delight-esque squares packed with pistachios and walnuts, is the big seller.

I like them best when they are rolled up in dried apricot wrappers. But my favorite is semsemia , the squares of gooey or crunchy toasted sesame with sugar and honey. Unlike nuts in a bag, semsemia i s a comforting sugar rush that makes you want to go out and conquer the world. Today, peanuts are also sold in candied form, which is not traditional. Peanuts are named for the Sudanese peddlers who once roamed the streets of the Levant and North Africa in more peaceful times selling hot peanuts. But I can only imagine how much more confusing it would be for Asians to find a variety of coated peanuts and nacho-flavored crunchy balls, called Asian crackers or Japanese crackers or Chinese crackers, depending on the shop.

And the American corn nut and wasabi peas are mainstays these days. So the Jordan nut shop has globalized itself. There are ever more ways to pass the time. As I watched people get onto the bus as we were leaving Aqaba, their overnight suitcases sometimes seemed dwarfed by the kilos and kilos of Al Shaab nuts they were also toting. On the four-hour drive back to Amman as my Kindle bounced around on my lap, I heard people munching on Al Shaab nuts and seeds.

No one else had a book. And thus the nuts win in the Middle East. I have never heard an Arab woman call her sweetheart the Arabic word for honey—or vice versus—even though Arabic is a language with scores of other terms of endearment. And yet honey is the queen bee of foods in the Arabian Peninsula, specifically in south Saudi Arabia, a region that is on a perennial honeymoon with honey.

This Babylonian story is closest to home geographically, but under Saudi laws, no one today is making honey wine, at least not legally.

Not that honey is without its legal loopholes: Undocumented Yemeni workers have been caught peddling honey from their homeland—legend or desert myth has it that honey smugglers transport coveted Yemeni honey across the border either as is or with other goodies, from weapons to drugs, nestled in its highly prized gooeyness. In the souq in the southern Saudi city of Abha, honey is the most competitive product being hocked, with vendors calling out the virtues of the local honey—color, thickness, taste—to veiled women who discreetly lift up their niqabs to take a tasting from the plastic spoon offered to them.

Not even dates as in the food can compete for attention. But I never thought of honey as an art form until I got to the Abha souq. After sampling a few, we discovered that every beekeepers honey has its own color, texture, and nuanced sweetness—and sometimes even its own bite and acquired taste. Honey shops across the Middle East will tell you that the best stuff comes from Yemen, from the sidr tree.

It often costs three times as much as other types in the region, even more than the much-loved samar honey, which is culled from a thorny tree the blooms for only a month or so. What Gucci and Pucci are to the Dubai Mall, samar and sidr are to the world of honey, both luxurious in complexity and alleged through their rich minerals and vitamins to prevent cancer, skin disease, hair loss, weight gain and diseases yet to be discovered.

As a hair or face mask, messy, messy. Samar honey, which comes in various shades of gold, is sweet and light, stuff you can easily understand Winnie-the-Pooh trying to score. People seemed genuinely offended by my reaction. To be fair, it was just that sidr. It was thick and slightly waxy, which I learned fro a Saudi honey seller meant that it was processed, not raw. Sitting with his honeycombs, he offered a sampling of his sidr honey, which was thin and lush and melted on your tongue like butter on a hot day. The weather in Abha is actually not that hot because of the altitude.

At the souq, the samna is sold in mosaic-patterned containers or in skin sacks the size of small lambs. For all the honey of Arabia, there is little creativity in its culinary use in Abha: It is simply the kick to various forms of bread and porridge, which are topped with honey —and often samna. When I brought home the Abha honey and put it up against the other honeys in the kitchen, it was, as the vendor I finally settled on promised, so much richer than the others, not in color or thickness but in the purity—not sugary, not waxy, just a sweet flowery, lively smooth spoonful that takes one to a green field somewhere, full of sophisticated gradations of flavor and life.

Bloodshed, flooding, people fleeing persecution, the fodder of biblical stories from the Holy Land. They are present day Christmastime in the birthplace of Christmas. But Noel in its current incarnation is supposed to be about fun. You can understand why Christmas-celebrating people around the world choose to tune out the modern day Holy Land stories.

They are not fun.

I love Christmastime in Dubai. The weather is the usual sunny stuff but the heat is pleasantly mild, and the humidity is usually on holiday somewhere else. Plus, the malls are festooned with some of the best Christmas decorations south of the North Pole, including the finest fake snow and ice on earth. And if you insist on real manmade snow, there is the indoor ski slope, transformed into an Alpine Christmas village.

People in elf hats even offer us free stollen samples, this sweet roll that is the greatest invention of Germany after cars and gummy bears. It should be a lot of fun. And some reckless ones, too. No pretense of anything else but keeping Christmas commercially honest. Competition between the blinding number of sales signs and billboards and the Christmas decorations is friendly and beneficial to both.

Profits from the stollens are for charity. Including the workers who built the malls and the team making the stollens, who are Filipinos not Germans. No one talks about the floods in the Philippines or other troubles in the rest of the world and we all get along. Without the religious icons on display, everyone joins in the true spirit of fun and oblivion without feeling left out on faith grounds. I heard a story once that the shape of a stollen represents the hump on the camel caravans that carried presents to Jesus when he was born.

A specialty's name sometimes includes that of a city or region, either in or outside of Turkey, and may refer to the specific technique or ingredients used in that area. For example, the difference between Urfa kebap and Adana kebap is the thickness of the skewer and the amount of hot pepper that the kebab contains. Urfa kebap is less spicy and thicker than Adana kebap.

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Although meat-based foods such as kebabs are the mainstay in Turkish cuisine as presented in foreign countries, native Turkish meals largely center around rice , vegetables , and bread. Turks usually prefer a rich breakfast. A specialty for breakfast is called menemen , which is prepared with tomatoes, green peppers, onion, olive oil and eggs. Invariably, Turkish tea is served at breakfast.

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Homemade food is still preferred by Turkish people. Although the newly introduced way of life pushes the new generation to eat out; Turkish people generally prefer to eat at home. Although fast food is gaining popularity and many major foreign fast food chains have opened all over Turkey, Turkish people still rely primarily on the rich and extensive dishes of Turkish cuisine.

Here and There All At Once

Eating out has always been common in large commercial cities. In the hot Turkish summer, a meal often consists of fried vegetables such as eggplant aubergine and peppers or potatoes served with yogurt or tomato sauce. Sheep cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelons and melons also make a light summer meal. Those who like helva for dessert prefer summer helva , which is lighter and less sweet than the regular one.

Frequently used ingredients in Turkish specialties include: Nuts, especially pistachios , chestnuts , almonds , hazelnuts , and walnuts , together with spices, have a special place in Turkish cuisine, and are used extensively in desserts or eaten separately. Semolina flour is used to make a cake called revani and irmik helvasi.

Used in milk desserts, ice creams, Turkish delight. Ground sumac can be used to season salads, rice and soups. A spice mix of sumac, dried thyme and roasted sesame seeds is used with grilled meats. Olives are also common on various breakfasts and meze tables frequently. Butter or margarine , olive oil , sunflower oil , canola oil , and corn oil are widely used for cooking. Sesame , hazelnut , peanut and walnut oils are used as well. The rich and diverse flora of Turkey means that fruit is varied, abundant and cheap. In Ottoman cuisine, fruit frequently accompanied meat as a side dish. Plums , apricots , pomegranates , pears , apples , grapes , and figs , along with many kinds of citrus are the most frequently used fruit, either fresh or dried, in Turkish cuisine.

Dolma and pilaf usually contain currants or raisins. Etli yaprak sarma vine leaves stuffed with meat and rice used to be cooked with sour plums in Ottoman cuisine. Turkish desserts do not normally contain fresh fruit, but may contain dried varieties. Veal , formerly shunned, is now widely consumed.

Alternatively, in coastal towns cheap fish such as sardalya sardines or hamsi anchovies are widely available, as well as many others with seasonal availability. Poultry consumption, almost exclusively of chicken and eggs, is common.

Milk-fed lambs , once the most popular source of meat in Turkey, comprise a small part of contemporary consumption. Yogurt is an important element in Turkish cuisine. In villages, yogurt is regularly eaten with rice or bread. One of the most common Turkish drinks, ayran , is made from yogurt.

Also, yogurt is often used in the preparation of cakes, some soups and pastries. Turkey produces many varieties of cheese , mostly from sheep 's milk. In general, these cheeses are not long matured, with a comparatively low fat content.

The production of many kinds of cheese is local to particular regions. Before the popularisation of the typical Turkish breakfast, soup was the default morning meal for some people.

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The most common soups in Turkish cuisine are:. Turkish cuisine has a range of savoury and sweet pastries. Dough based specialties form an integral part of traditional Turkish cuisine. The use of layered dough is rooted in the nomadic character of early Central Asian Turks. Katmer is another traditional rolled out dough. It can be salty or sweet according to the filling.

Katmer with pistachio and kaymak is a sweet food and one of the most popular breakfast items in Gaziantep. Lahmacun meaning dough with meat in Arabic is a thin flatbread covered with a layer of spiced minced meat, tomato, pepper, onion or garlic. It is similar to simit in shape, is covered in a glaze, and is usually eaten as a part of breakfast or as a snack.

A vegetable dish can be a main course in a Turkish meal. A large variety of vegetables are used, such as spinach , leek , cauliflower , artichoke , cabbage , celery , eggplant , green and red bell peppers , string bean and jerusalem artichoke. The vegetables and hot water will then be added. Quite frequently a spoon of rice and lemon juice is also added. Vegetable dishes usually tend to be served with its own water the cooking water thus often called in colloquial Turkish sulu yemek literally "a dish with juice".

Spinach, leek, string bean and artichoke with olive oil are among the most widespread dishes in Turkey. Dolma is the name used for stuffed vegetables. Like the vegetables cooked with olive oil as described above dolma with olive oil does not contain meat. If vine leaves are used, they are first pickled in brine.

However, dolma is not limited to these common types; many other vegetables and fruits are stuffed with a meat or rice mixture. Fillings used in dolma may consist of parts of the vegetable carved out for preparation, rice with spices or minced meat. Instead, red lentil is used as the major ingredient together with spring onion, tomato paste etc. It can be served as a meze as well. Fried eggplant and pepper is a common summer dish in Turkey. It is served with yogurt or tomato sauce and garlic. It can be either fried or cooked in the oven.

It is often enjoyed as an appetizer. It is made with a large variety of vegetables, from cucumber to courgette. It comes from the Persian "Torshi", which refers to pickled "Torsh" sour vegetables. Meze is a selection of food served as the appetizer course with or without drinks. Some of them can be served as a main course as well. Dolma is a verbal noun of the Turkish verb dolmak 'to be stuffed or filled ', and means simply 'stuffed thing'. Dolma and sarma has a special place in Turkish cuisine.

It can be eaten either as a meze or a main dish. It can be cooked either as a vegetable dish or meat dish. If a meat mixture is put in, it is usually served hot with yogurt and spices such as oregano and red pepper powder with oil.

If the mixture is only vegan recipe it should only have olive oil rice or bulgur and some nuts and raisins inside especially blackcurrant. This type of dolma does not contain meat, is served cold and also referred to as sarma , which means "wrapping" in Turkish. Vine leaves yaprak could be filled not only with rice and spices but also with meat and rice, etli yaprak sarma , in which case it was often served hot with yogurt. Melon dolma along with quince or apple dolma was one of the palace's specialties raw melon stuffed with minced meat, onion, rice, almonds, cooked in an oven.

Face the facts – Syria is an apartheid state

In contemporary Turkey, a wide variety of dolma is prepared. Instead of dried cherries in the palace cuisine, currants are usually added to the filling of dolma cooked in olive oil. Kebab refers to a great variety of meat-based dishes in Turkish cuisine. Kebab in Turkey encompasses not only grilled or skewered meats, but also stews and casseroles. Turkey is surrounded by seas which contain a large variety of fish. In the Black Sea region, fish are usually fried with thick corn flour.

Fish is also cooked in salt or in dough in Turkey. Fish soup prepared with vegetables, onion and flour is common in coastal towns and cities. Popular seafood mezes at coastlines include stuffed mussels, fried mussel and fried kalamar squid with tarator sauce. Popular sea fish in Turkey include: One of the world-renowned desserts of Turkish cuisine is baklava.

Baklava is made either with pistachios or walnuts. There are different types of kadaif:

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