Ubiquity of Lebanese cuisine

[wgallois]

Why is it that Lebanese/Levantine food appears to have almost become a kind of ‘default cuisine’ across much of the Arab world? Its ubiquity is quite striking in that while it is difficult to find, for example, a Sudanese, Moroccan, or even Egyptian, restaurant in some Arab cities, there are always scores of Lebanese restaurants.

I am intrigued as to why this is the case. Is it because of the entrepreneurial spirit of Lebanese restaurateurs? Is it because of some inherently more satisfying structure of the Lebanese meal as compared with other Arab cuisines? Is it because a modern ‘Lebanese cuisine’ is actually a synthesis of other Arab culinary traditions? Does it have anything to do with the French colonial experience in Lebanon and Syria?

I like Lebanese food a great deal, but I must admit that living in the Gulf I am pretty bored by its ubiquity. In a city like Dubai there are perhaps two or three places where one can eat couscous and tagines, a small number of specifically-Egyptian places, and, as far as I can see, almost no restaurants or cafes devoted to the varied cuisines of places such as Sudan, the Gulf Arab states and the western Maghreb. By contrast, there are scores of Lebanese restaurants, and even Indian restaurants here will include various mezze on their menus.

[Suvir Saran]

I like Lebanese food a great deal, but I must admit that living in the Gulf I am pretty bored by its ubiquity. In a city like Dubai there are perhaps two or three places where one can eat couscous and tagines, a small number of specifically-Egyptian places, and, as far as I can see, almost no restaurants or cafes devoted to the varied cuisines of places such as Sudan, the Gulf Arab states and the western Maghreb. By contrast, there are scores of Lebanese restaurants, and even Indian restaurants here will include various mezze on their menus.

I guess the spirit of the people must have a lot to do with this. I am no expert, so I shall wait and read what the others have to add on this... very interesting thread.

What kind of mezze do the various Indian restaurants have???

[Tonyfinch]

Are you saying that Lebabese is the most ubiquitous cuisine of all or only of the Arab/North African cuisnes? Is there a lot of Western cuisine there?

Edited March 1, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[Explorer]

The short answer is to think of the analogy of French food influence on Western world cuisines. Lebanese cuisine is the richest and most varied in the Middle-East. Its export success is partly due to the entrepreneurial drive of the Lebanese, but also because of the inherently wide range of nutritional structure it possesses. It dwarfes any other regional cuisines which are more limited; that's why you won't find too many Sudanese or Morrocan, etc....

Lebanese cuisine is generally healthy. There is almost no frying, no butter or cream sauces. It is based mostly on grilling and baking, or olive oil sautéing. Usage of olive oil, lemon and herbs is as frequent as in Italian cuisine. Spices are mild. Lots of beans and grains.

It does seem to have a large footprint when contrasted with the small size of the country. The history and present of Lebanon is a rich land with an abundance of fruit, vegetable, animal/poultry production as well as fresh seafood availability. It has water, mountains and the right weather. All these are the right environmental variables for culinary experimentation.

As far as influences, they didn’t start with the French mandate (early 1900’s). Overall, you will see some osmosis with Southern Italian, Southern France, Greek and Turkish influences.

I agree that it could become boring if restaurants stick to the usual tabbouli, hummous, kefta, falafel, etc… I wonder if you have the option to try the “plat-du-jour” which are usually more sophisticated creations. Have you tried for e.g. mulukieh, moghrabieh, sayyadieh, or even pigeon dishes? How about kibbe with laban? Or Chich-Barak: Meat dumplings in warm yogurt sauce?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yes this is my impression as well. Lebanese is the superior cuisine in the middle east. Not sure why. French influence? Most farmable land? They are certainly the only nation in the region to produce world class wines in Chateau Musar and Kefraya. I would be surprised if the reasons were not related to agriculture and class.

[Explorer]

Thanks Steve....I almost forgot about the wine (Musar/Ksara) which is probably not available in the radical Arab countries.

The wine has definitely to do with the French Jesuits that started it in 1800's, the right weather, plus the number of Christians there; i.e. not being a Muslim country, drinking is ok.

The next issue of Saveur (April) will have a special report on the revival of the Lebanese wine industry.

[Steve Plotnicki]

....I almost forgot about the wine (Musar/Ksara) which is probably not available in the radical Arab countries.

Explorer - Well as in all other examples we raise about great cuisines, there is usually an aspect of multi-culturalism involved, as well as an aristocratic or monied class that can afford to hire chefs who have create a cuisine for them. Closed off societies, like Saudi Arabia, are not as likely to have created as interesting a cuisine.

[wgallois]

Thanks to all of those who have contributed so interestingly on this thread.

Suvir: Indian restaurants here only tend to have a limited range of mezze such as houmous and tabbouleh, but even other restaurants with what one would consider as distinctive Middle Eastern cuisines (such as Iranian restaurants) also tend now to include a number of Lebanese dishes on their menus.

Tony: My claim was that Lebanese is the most ubiquitous of all cuisines in the Arab world. It is true that a city like Dubai has a lot of European restaurants (mainly Italian/pan-Mediterranean), but I would guess that places serving Levantine food represent the second-largest in terms of numbers of restaurants (Indian/Pakistani would win hands down here as c.70% of the population are from the subcontinent).

Explorer: Thanks for such a knowledgeable post. Your points about the agricultural potential and climate of Lebanon seem to be very strong ones. I find you point about Lebanese cuisine having a wider range of 'nutritional structure' much more debatable, especially with regard to, say, Sudanese or Tunisian cuisine. I have tried some of the 'plats du jour' you mention, and it is true that I may have unfairly characterised Lebanese cuisine as rather narrow (I should say that one of the reasons I have so much of it is that I work in an instution where much of our catering consists of Lebanese food).

Steve P: I agree with you on the wines (Chateau Musar and Hochar are amongst my favourite wines), but not on the question of Lebanese food being the 'superior [Middle Eastern] cuisine'. My feeling is that Moroccan, Tunisian, Turkish and Iranian cuisines, amongst others, might have interesting claims to be just as good as Lebanese food, though they are not now as widely dispersed as they used to be.

[Explorer]

I didn' t mean to shoot down the other cuisines, but relatively-speaking the Lebanese cuisine is more varied which has helped in giving it a wider range of acceptance. I think that all cuisines have great dishes.

Could you by any chance challenge your caterers to diversify a bit more?

[wgallois]

No, I certainly didn't think that you were shooting down any other cuisines.

Yes, our catering operation could do with some diversification (though recent moves in that direction have included the opening of a Pizza Hut, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and a KFC!).

[Steve Plotnicki]

Moroccan, Tunisian, Turkish and Iranian

Well I didn't say Muslim cuisine, I said middle eastern cuisine. The last time I looked at a map, Morocco and Tunisia were in North Africa and not the middle east. And Turkey was half in Europe and their cuisine incorporates Armenian, Russian, Greek and other European cuisines. And Iran is not part of the middle east either and in many ways their cuisine resembles certain aspects of Indian cuisine. Let's stick with middle eastern cuisine. Lebanese, Palestinian, Israeli (which is a cultural construct at this point) Jordanian, Saudi Arabian, Syrian. Even Egypt has a unique cuisine that isn't best served being identified as middle eastern, though you can lump it in wihout great difficulty. But once you jump one country to the east of the countries that ring Israel, like Iraq, they start to have cuisines that are possibly better described as central Asian then middle eastern.

[wgallois]

I agree that a concept of the Middle East that incorporates such a broad geographic zone is tenuous, so let's split the difference and include Iran and Turkey, but exclude the Maghrebin states.

This would follow the CIA's picture of the 'Middle East':

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo...iddle_east.html

or the Lonely Planet who include Iran, Turkey and Egypt in their Middle East guide.

You're right that this includes places like Turkey and Iran whose cuisines incorporate elements from other places, but it seems to me that one of the points of this discussion is to ask why it is that it is not the cuisine of Egypt, Iran or Turkey which is ubiquitous in the Middle East, in spite of their collectively having held geopolitical dominance over the region for much of history, but that of the Levant, whose political history would not suggest such a wide spread of its cuisine.

[Stone]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this, but could it simply be because Lebanon sits at the juncture of Africa, Asia and Europe? Combined with its superior climate for agriculture (so said above), coastal location for fish and seafood, perhaps also proximity to the Ottoman rulers(?), political stability and economic success (probably due to all of the above), it was better able to absorb and expand on the influences passing through? (Whereas Mesopotamia/Jordan/Syria suffered from poor soil and poor adminstration by the Ottomans.)

Also, I'm curious if there has been an increase in Lebanese restaurants abroad since the civil war began, or if Lebanese food always been ubiquitous?

Edited March 1, 2003 by Stone (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this, but could it simply be because Lebanon sits at the juncture of Africa, Asia and Europe?

Stone - This is the same argument as to why Israel/Palestine/Jerusalem has been so hotly contested as to who has control of the land. It sits at the crossroads of European/Asian/African civilization. But ultimately that argument goes to cultural, racial and religious diversity doesn't it?

I agree that a concept of the Middle East that incorporates such a broad geographic zone is tenuous, so let's split the difference and include Iran and Turkey, but exclude the Maghrebin states.

I hate to be politically incorrect here, and I am certainly no expert on the topic and I don't want to insult anyone by mispeaking, but isn't this a matter of race? I know the Turks, Egyptians and Iranians all consider themselves to be racially different from the rest of the geo-political region. I am not sure (and part of this is my ignorance on the topic) if we can say the same thing about Lebabnon, Syria, Jordan, Palestinians etc., even Jews born in historic Palestine. And I'm not speaking of a difference that would spur a national identity, but a racial identity. And if I am correct, isn't this the reason to exclude them? And once again I apologize if anyone is offended and I stand to be corrected.

[Stone]

Steve -- That's not quite what I'm saying. Yes, the cross-roads of the continents may purport to offer an explanation of why people consider the land so important (I think you're skeptical of that argument, and I agree). But what I was trying to focus on is exactly what you identify as the "cultural, racial and religious diversity". Because it sits at the cross-roads of long-used trade routes, the cuisine is the result of a large, diverse number of cultural influences, thereby developing a more diverse and perhaps ultimately superior cuisine.

I think you're right that it's difficult to identify different "races" in the Palestine/Jordan/Syria/Lebanon area. From what little I know, I think you're right that Persians, Turks and Egyptians certainly separate themselves from the blanket generalization "Arab" with which Westerners paint the region. But my understanding is that Arabs from the Arabian peninsula will also deny that Palestinians (except the hashemites who were relocated to Jordan, but that's another topic), Syrians or Mesopotamians are Arabs.

Edited March 2, 2003 by Stone (log)

[wgallois]

Thanks Steve and Stone for pushing closer to an answer to the question of the ubiquity of Lebanese cuisine. I think this focus you have introduced on the Levant as a multicultural juncture between continents and cultures is a very helpful one.

With regard to your question, Stone, on whether Lebanese food was as ubiquitous before the Civil War, most of my colleagues (who come from across the Arab world) suggest that it was not. Suggestions as to why its popularity increased (in addition to the reasons outlined by you and others in this thread) were the relative 'lightness' of Lebanese food as compared, for example, to Gulf Arab cuisine, in more health-conscious times (which goes back to Explorer's point); the 'prestige' value that has come to be associated with Lebanese food through its popularity amongst mobile and prosperous groups across the Arab world; the early emigration of Lebanese migrants to the US (and perhaps the establishment of a canon of dishes which can then be replayed in 'Lebanese-style' restaurants across the world); and the popular belief that to eat Lebanese food is to eat a great synthesis of other Arab/Ottoman/Middle Eastern styles.

[Stone]

With regard to your question, Stone, on whether Lebanese food was as ubiquitous before the Civil War, most of my colleagues (who come from across the Arab world) suggest that it was not.

Perhaps, then, the war drove many Lebanese out of Lebanon. Setting up a restaurant is a time-honored path for immigrant populations.

[Rifqa]

One of the problems in talking about Middle Eastern cuisine is the difficulty there is in identifying particular dishes as being from one Middle Eastern country or another. Molokhieh, for example, is a very typically Egyptian dish (it is not Lebanese) as is pigeon. Other things, such as ta'amia (or felafel) have always been eaten in both Egypt and Sudan.

It is true that Lebanon is a place where continents and cultures meet, but this can also be said of Egypt. Moreover, agriculture in Egypt is very well developed and rests after all on the most fertile soil found anywhere in the world.

I think the reason for the ubiquity of Lebanese cuisine is just a result of the metonymic labelling of other Middle Eastern foods as Lebanese.

Finally, surely the reason for the lack of variation in Saudi Arabian cuisine is not that it is "a closed off society", but that it was largely nomadic until very recently, as well as being mostly desert?

[Steve Plotnicki]

I don't find Egyptian cuisine to be known outside of Egypt at all. That is because I don't see Cairo as a major route of travel outside of people coming from points in Africa. By far Lebanon has to have had the most number of travelers, and the most diverse group. Diversity(typically religious in olden times) and more importantly choice, are the keys to building a successful cuisine. The notion that someone passing through your city has a choice of what they want to eat is a powerful one, and is at the heart of a market system (I mean economic not green grocer). And this might go to Rifga's point about the metonomyic labeling of the cuisine as Lebanese. People carried the most varied cuisine back to their own countries and that terminology eventually became dominant. That there was overlap because they all made falafal is really of no conscequence because that describes a dish, and not a cuisine.

[Explorer]

From Arab.net web site,-- a neutral web site:

"Lebanese contributions have been the greatest influence on modern Middle Eastern cuisine, in no small part due to the entrepreneurship of the Lebanese that has helped to spread Arabic cuisine throughout the world from its centre in the Levant in such areas as Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut and Nablus. Lebanese culinary influence and business skills provide the framework for the exotic cuisine recognised internationally as Arabic. " Source: http://www.arab.net/cuisine

Saying that Lebanese cuisine is a flagship for Arab cuisine is no different than saying that French cuisine is a flagship of European influences. Yes, there are regional variations in many dishes, but the predominance of the Lebanese label is probably the result of hard work and the other reasons mentioned in this post already.

[Rifqa]

Egypt is traditionally the greatest meeting point between cultures in the region, standing at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean.

Nowadays it attracts far more tourists than any other country in the Middle East.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Egypt is traditionally the greatest meeting point between cultures in the region, standing at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean

Have you looked at a map of the Mediterannean recently? I don't see why people would need Egypt to get anywhere other then the Saudi Arabian peninsula or central Africa. In fact you can bypass it completely. So your statement makes no sense to me. Beirut and Jerusalem and then Damascus and Amman, those would have to be the most traveled cities by any traveler that was crossing from one region to the other because they are on the east/west axis.

[Rifqa]

Have you heard of the Suez canal?

[Steve Plotnicki]

What does the Suez Canal have to do with it? That was for long distance boat travel. In fact if anything the Suez Canal would make Egypt even less important because you didn't have to stop there.

Suez Canal

It was inagurated in 1869. I would think that Beirut's dominance as a cultural center for the region precedes that date. Besides the Suez Canal was for large ships travelling to the Far East. What does it have to do with people travelling by land who needed something to eat?

[wgallois]

Steve, your last post on Egypt completely drastically underestimates the importance of Egypt as a hub of trade and ideas in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean worlds:

1. The fact that you don't see why people would have travelled through Egypt is immaterial and irrelevant, because the fact is that people did, and for the following reasons:

a. Cairo and Alexandria have always been two of the largest cities in the Middle East; sites people travelled to in themselves, and not simply as way-stations on longer routes. What is more these places displayed precisely the kind of multi-culturalism that you would have expected to find in such cities.

b. Why don't you in fact look at a map of the Mediterranean and contemplate the fact that Cairo and Alexandria lie on the trade route from the Maghreb to the Levant and the Arabian peninsula (and vice versa), and that much trade from the Far East was routed through the Arabian peninsula and thence to Egypt for wider distribution.

c. The siting of Al Azhar in Cairo cannot be underestimated in terms of that city acting as a focus for higher learning across the centuries.

d. Cairo traditionally served as an important starting point for pilgrimages to Mecca.

2. Why do you assume that east-west movement would have necessarily moved from the 'east' westwards to states north of the Mediterranean? You might like to reflect on the much greater political and cultural unity that had existed in the southern Mediterranean (eg c.711-1492 until the fall of al-Andalus, and later under the Ottomans), and the fact that Egypt would thus have played a fairly central role in trade and other movement in that polity (as indeed it did with east-west trade to the northern Mediterranean too).

3. I am not quite sure how to interpret your assertion that people would have only needed to have gone through Egypt to reach 'the Saudi [sic] Arabian peninsula or central Africa'. It is after all, precisely Egypt's strategic location with regard to those places, as well as the Maghreb and the Levant, which supports the argument that Egypt is in fact at the crossroads of 'Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean'.

Some quotations in support of the above assertions:

"In the thirteenth century, Islam's preeminent city was Cairo, which boasted a diverse population of 500,000. [...] It was ruled by foreign-born dynasts, known as Mamluks, many of whom had entered the Islamic world during the Turkish population movements into western Asia at an earlier date and had gone to Egypt to serve the ruling elite as military and bureaucratic slaves. From 1250 to 1517, they were able to dominate the Nile river basin as a privileged, Turkish-speaking military elite that lived apart from the Arabic-speaking commoners. Cosmopolitan Cairo also included separate Christian, Jewish and Greek quarters. [...] As befit a commercial centre, Cairo had an abundance of markets each specialising in a particular commodity. Here were spices; there incense; further along, textiles, copperware and foodstuffs."

Robert Tignor et al, World Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002), p.18.

[on trade in the medieval Middle East] "The staples of this trade, during this period, were textiles, glass, porcelain from China and - perhaps most important of all - spices; these were brought from south and south-east Asia, in earlier Islamic times to the ports of the Gulf, Siraf and Basra, and later on up the Red Sea to one of the Egyptian ports and thence to Cairo, from where they were distributed all over the Mediterranean world, by land-routes or else by sea from the ports of Damietta, Rosetta and Alexandria. Gold was brought from Ethiopia down the Nile and by caravan to Cairo, and from the regions of the river Niger across the Sahara to the Maghreb..."

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), p.111.

"By the Mamluk period it was the pilgrimages from Cairo and Damascus which were the most important. Those from the Maghrib woukd go by sea or land to Cairo, meet the Egyptian pilgrims there, and travel by land across Sinai and down through western Arabia to the holy cities..."

Hourani, pp.149-50.

"Britain's presence in the Middle East helped to maintain her presence as a Mediterranean power and as a world power. The sea-route to India and the Far East ran through the Suez Canal. Air-routes across the Middle East were also being developed in the 1920s and 1930s: one went by way of Egypt to Iraq and India, and another through Egypt southwards into Africa."

Hourani, p.320.