The region, in mezze

I. The arrangement

The mezze table is covered before the meal begins. Not fully covered — the dishes arrive in waves — but the foundation is there: the bread, the raw vegetables, the olives. The flat bread is already on the table when the guests arrive, because to make someone wait for bread is to have failed the first test of hospitality.

Cold dishes first — hummus, mutabbal, fattoush, tabbouleh, labneh, kibbeh nayyeh if it is being served. These dishes are already prepared. They require nothing from the kitchen at the moment of service.

Hot dishes come after — fried kibbeh, sfiha, grilled meats, halloumi, stuffed grape leaves. Hot dishes arrive in sequence because hot dishes come from the kitchen in sequence and the kitchen is a room where someone is working. The arrival of the hot dishes is the mid-point of the meal, not the beginning of it.

II. The specific differences

Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian mezze are related and distinct. Lebanese hummus is smooth, heavily lemon, finished with olive oil and paprika, served warm. The tahini proportion is significant — the sesame is a primary flavor, not a background note.

Syrian hummus is similar but typically less lemon, slightly more tahini, with different finishing oils and sometimes garnished with chickpeas on top. Palestinian hummus tends to be creamier, the chickpeas cooked longer and more fully mashed, served very warm, almost hot.

Lebanese tabbouleh is primarily parsley, with bulgur as a minor component — approximately three parts parsley to one part bulgur by volume. What is sold as tabbouleh in much of the world — grain with some parsley added — is the ratio reversed.

III. The politics

The food of the Levant does not exist outside of the politics of the region. Dishes that appear across Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan carry the history of borders drawn by European powers in 1916 and 1920 that divided communities and traditions that had existed across a continuous geography for centuries.

The hummus, the falafel, the kibbeh, the fattoush — these are not Lebanese dishes or Syrian dishes or Palestinian dishes. They are Levantine dishes. The borders are recent. The dishes are not.

A Lebanese woman cooking kibbeh in Beirut and a Palestinian woman cooking kibbeh in a displacement camp are cooking the same dish in conditions that are not the same. The food connects them. It does not resolve the conditions.

IV. The moment before the meal begins

There is a specific moment in a Lebanese meal that I think of as the table's best moment, and it is the moment before anyone has begun to eat. The table is set. The cold mezze are on it. The bread is warm. The wine or the arak has been poured.

In that moment — a few seconds, sometimes longer — the table is what it was meant to be before it is consumed. The abundance is present and unhurried. The hospitality that organized the table is visible in the arrangement of the dishes.

This is what hospitality through food actually looks like — not the eating, but the moment before the eating, when everything is ready and nothing has yet been used. Then someone tears the bread, and the meal begins.

Recipe — Hummus · Lebanese Style

Samira Aoun · Beirut · serves 6 · 20 minutes

• Serves 6
• 20 min blend
• 3 min minimum
• 150 g tahini

Ingredients

• 400 g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight, cooked until very soft (or 800 g canned, drained)
• 150 g good tahini (stir before using)
• Juice of 2 lemons, more to taste
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with salt
• 1 tsp salt
• 4–6 tbsp ice water
• Extra virgin olive oil, paprika, whole cooked chickpeas to serve

The method

1. Reserve some cooking liquid if using dried chickpeas.
2. Blend chickpeas in a food processor until very smooth — at least 3 minutes. The longer you blend, the smoother the hummus.
3. Add tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. Blend more.
4. Add ice water tablespoon by tablespoon until the hummus is creamy, pale, and lighter in color. Season with salt. Taste — add more lemon if needed.
5. Spread in a shallow bowl, pressing from the center outward to create a well. Fill the well with olive oil. Dust with paprika. Add a few whole chickpeas.
6. Serve warm or at room temperature with warm flat bread.

About the contributor

Samira Aoun

Samira Aoun writes about Lebanese mezze and the Middle Eastern table from Beirut, Lebanon. She organizes the table before she organizes the food, and considers the moment before the first hand reaches for the bread the best moment of any meal.

Editor’s notes — the longer view

A note on the bread. The flat bread is on the table before the guests sit down. Always. To make someone wait for bread is to have failed the first test of hospitality. Buy it the day you use it from a baker who fires the oven that morning.

A note on tabbouleh. Three parts parsley to one part bulgur, by volume. The bulgur is fine #1, soaked in lemon juice (not water) for fifteen minutes before the parsley is added. If your tabbouleh is brown, you have used too much bulgur and not enough parsley.

A note on the arak. One-third arak, two-thirds cold water, ice last — never first, or the ouzo effect cracks the glass cloudy in a way that looks broken. The cloud is the anethole emulsifying. The arak is for the cold mezze. The hot mezze want red wine.

A note on the politics. The food of this region is older than the borders drawn through it. Naming the food after a country is a recent argument. The grandmothers did not have it. Their grandchildren can choose not to have it either.

Back to American · Cook lane · HowTo: Food Edition home · American cuisine hub