As the three great religions of the Middle East have grown and spread around the world, so have large portions of their cuisines.
When you think about it, nothing spreads new foods and ways of preparing it around the world like religious zeal. We can look at it many ways, of course, but since I’m supposed to be blogging about Middle Eastern cuisine, let’s look at it in terms of the interplay between Islam, Judaism and Christianity in the Fertile Crescent. (By the way, I have always loved what that old term for the region evokes. You can almost smell the ripening grain, the baking breads and vine ripe fruits….)
Anyway, back to religion. The years 750 – 1258 marked the Abbasid Dynasty or what has commonly been called the "Golden Age of Islam." It was also during this period that we see both a green revolution in agriculture in the Middle East and the development of the quintessential Islamic Cuisine from the blending of the earlier traditions of Arab, Iranian, Turkish and even Mediterranean elements. In other words, as Islam developed and spread throughout the greater region, the food culture followed suit. During this time, we also see the creation of the first cookbooks – in Arabic.
Then, from 1096 – to around 1291, we have the period of the Crusades…all seven of them. The Europeans brought more than their brand of Christianity to the (now) Islamic countries - they brought many of their plants and the recipes and cooking techniques that went along with them. Just as importantly, the Crusaders returned to their homelands with new foods and cooking techniques.
Want more? Look at ways in which a uniquely Israeli cuisine/culture is being created – partly from the Azkanazi traditions that are pretty European partly from the North African Sephardic foodways and partly from traditions that have been part of the Middle East generally for thousands of years.
