Although rice is not indigenous to the Middle East, it has been cultivated to suitable areas for a couple of thousand years and is quite a popular grain.
When it comes to Middle Eastern cooking, Basmati rice seems to work best for savory kinds of dishes, like pilafs and dolmas, and short grained, sticker varieties work best for sweet dishes, like rice pudding. Technically, Basmati – fragrant, slightly nutty tasting long grained rice – is not actually grown in the Middle East, but in certain sections of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. But the basmati-like varieties that are grown in many parts of the Middle East are not grown in sufficient quantities to export and pretty much stay a staple of the small regions in which they are grown.
Although it yields higher crops than equal areas of wheat or barley, both of the latter grains are used more widely in Middle Eastern cooking than is rice – but rice holds a special place in the cuisine, nonetheless. For one thing, it has been widely reported that long grain rice, cooked simply with clarified butter, was one of the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite dishes.
But, although it has been grown in marshy area of Anatolia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Syria for thousands of years, there has rarely been so much produced that it ever became an everyday food. Instead, cooked with everything from butter to sour cherries; orange peel and mulberries to tomatoes, traditionally it usually featured, mounded in great pyramids, on tables at the wedding feast or other special occasions.
Today, rice production is up in areas that are able to grow it – and a wider global economy has made it pretty widely available throughout the entire Middle East. In the 20th century, into today, it has become more popular as an everyday dish.
