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Zaatar
Za'atar ( ; , ) is a versatile herb blend and family of wild herbs native to the Levant, central to Middle Eastern cuisine and culture. The term refers both to aromatic plants of the ''Origanum'' and '' Thymbra'' genera (including '' Origanum syriacum'', known as Bible hyssop) and to the prepared spice mixture of dried herbs, toasted sesame seeds, sumac, and salt. With roots stretching back to ancient Egypt and classical antiquity, za'atar has been used for millennia as a seasoning, folk remedy, and cultural symbol. The spice blend varies regionally, with Lebanese versions emphasizing sumac's tartness, while Palestinian varieties may include caraway. It flavors iconic dishes like '' manakish'' (za'atar flatbread), enhances labneh and hummus, and is mixed with olive oil as a dip (''za'atar-wu-zayt''). Beyond cuisine, medieval Arabic and Jewish medical texts, including works by Maimonides, documented za'atar's digestive benefits, and Palestinian tradition associates it with men ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Origanum Syriacum
''Origanum syriacum'' subsp. ''syriacum''; syn. ''Majorana syriaca'' (also ''Origanum maru'', although this primarily refers to a hybrid of ''O. syriacum''), bible hyssop, Biblical-hyssop, Lebanese oregano or Syrian oregano, is an aromatic perennial herb in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is a preferred primary ingredient in the spice mixture ''za'atar''. ''O. syriacum'' is native to the Palestine region and was formerly used in ceremonial functions in the Temple in Jerusalem, such as for sprinkling the waters of a purification mixture made by the ashes of a burned red heifer on persons defiled by the dead. Etymology The Arabic word zaʿatar (), may refer to one of several plants, as well as the spice mixture of the same name which the plants are associated with. In many English translations of the Bible, ''ezov'' is rendered as hyssop, hence the common name for bible hyssop, believed to be a different plant generally identified with ''Hyssopus officinalis''. Problems with id ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sesame Seeds
Sesame (; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a plant in the genus ''Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods. World production in 2018 was , with Sudan, Myanmar, and India as the largest producers. Sesame seed is one of the oldest oilseed crops known, domesticated well over 3,000 years ago. ''Sesamum'' has many other species, most being wild and native to sub-Saharan Africa. ''S. indicum,'' the cultivated type, originated in India. It tolerates drought conditions well, growing where other crops fail. Sesame has one of the highest oil contents of any seed. With a rich, nutty flavor, it is a common ingredient in cuisines around the world. Like other foods, it can trigger allergic reactions in some people and is one of the nine most common allergens outlined by the Food and Drug Administration. Etymology The wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lebanese Cuisine
Lebanese cuisine is the culinary traditions and practices originating from Lebanon. It includes an abundance of Whole grain#Varieties, whole grains, Fruit#Food uses, fruits, Vegetable#Cultivation, vegetables, fresh Fish (food), fish and seafood. Poultry#Poultry as food, Poultry is eaten more often than red meat, and when red meat is eaten, it is usually Lamb and mutton#Butchery and cookery, lamb and Goat#Meat, goat meat. Dishes include copious amounts of garlic and olive oil, and dishes are often seasoned with salt and lemon juice. Chickpeas and parsley are also staples of the Lebanese diet. Well-known dishes include ''Baba ghanoush, baba ghanouj'', ''tabbouleh'', ''sfeeha'', ''falafel'' and ''shawarma''. An important component of many Lebanese meals is ''hummus'', a chickpea puree dish, and many dishes are eaten with flatbread. A plate of veggies with tomatoes, cucumber, mint, olives and pickles is always served on table, and a plate of fruits at the end of the meal with a Leba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labneh
Strained yogurt, Greek or Greek-style yogurt, yogurt cheese, sack yogurt, kerned yogurt or labneh is yogurt that has been strained to remove most of its whey, resulting in a thicker consistency than normal unstrained yogurt, while still preserving the distinctive sour taste of yogurt. Like many types, strained yogurt is often made from milk enriched by boiling off some water content, or by adding extra butterfat and powdered milk. In Europe and North America, it is often made from low-fat or fat-free cow's milk. In Iceland a similar product named skyr is made. Strained yogurt is usually marketed in North America as "Greek yogurt" and in the United Kingdom as "Greek-style yoghurt", though strained yogurt is also widely eaten in Levantine, Eastern Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Central Asian, South Asian, and Eastern European cuisines, where it is often used in cooking, as it curdles less readily when cooked. It is used in a variety of dishes, cooked or not, savory or sweet. St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first written account, oldest languages still spoken as a native language, native language, on account of Hebrew being attested since the 2nd millennium BC. It uses the Hebrew Alphabet, an Abjad, abjad script written from right-to-left. The current standard was Codification (linguistics), codified as part of the revival of Hebrew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and now serves as the Official language, sole official and national language of the State of Israel, where it is Languages of Israel, predominantly spoken by over 9 million people. Thus, Modern Hebrew is near universally regarded as the most successful instance of language revitalization in history. A Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hummus
Hummus (, ; , , also spelled hommus or houmous), (full name: Hummus Bi Tahini) is a Levantine cuisine, Levantine Dip (food), dip, spread (food), spread, or savory Dish (food), dish made from cooked, mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. The standard garnish includes olive oil, a few whole chickpeas, parsley, and paprika. The earliest mention of hummus was in a 13th century cookbook attributed to the historian Ibn al-Adim from Aleppo in present-day Syria. Commonly consumed in Levantine cuisine, it is usually eaten as a dip with pita bread. In the West, it is produced industrially and consumed as a snack or appetizer with crackers or vegetables. Etymology and spelling The word ''hummus'' is 'chickpeas'. The full name of the prepared spread in Arabic is 'chickpeas with tahini'. The colloquial Arabic word is a variant of the Arabic or which may be derived from the Aramaic language ( ), corresponding to the Syriac language, Syriac word for chickpe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olive Oil
Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea'', a traditional Tree fruit, tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin) and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a condiment, or as a salad dressing. It can also be found in some cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, soaps, and fuels for traditional oil lamps. It also has additional uses in some religions. The olive is one of three core food plants in Mediterranean cuisine, with wheat and grapes. Olive trees have been cultivated around the Mediterranean since the 8th millennium BC. In 2022, Spain was the world's largest producer, manufacturing 24% of the world's total. Other large producers were Italy, Greece, and Turkey, collectively accounting for 59% of the global market. The composition of olive oil varies with the cultivar, altitude, time of harvest, and extraction process. It consists mainly of oleic acid (up to 83%), with smaller amounts of other fatty acids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maimonides
Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. He was born on Passover eve 1138 or 1135, and lived in Córdoba, Spain, Córdoba in al-Andalus (now in Spain) within the Almoravid dynasty, Almoravid Empire until his family was expelled for refusing to convert to Islam. Later, he lived in Morocco and Egypt and worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher. During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on Halakha, Jewish law and Jewish ethics, ethics with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the History of the Jews in Egypt, Jewish community in Egypt, his writings also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semitic Languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of Western Asia, West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Malta, and in large Immigration, immigrant and Expatriate, expatriate communities in North America, Europe, and Australasia. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history, who derived the name from Shem, one of the three Generations of Noah, sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis. Semitic languages List of languages by first written account, occur in written form from a very early historical date in West Asia, with East Semitic languages, East Semitic Akkadian language, Akkadian (also known as Ancient Assyrian language, Assyrian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Levant
The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in Western AsiaGasiorowski, Mark (2016). ''The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa''. p. 5: "... today the term ''Levantine'' can describe shared cultural products, such as Levantine cuisine or Levantine archaeology". .Steiner & Killebrew, p9: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of 'Amuq in the north and extend south until the Wâdī al-Arish, along the northern coast of Sinai. ... The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ignace Gelb
Ignace Jay Gelb (October 14, 1907December 22, 1985) was a Polish-American Assyriologist who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems. Early life Born in Tarnów, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Poland), he earned his PhD from the University of Rome in 1929, then went to the University of Chicago where he was a professor of Assyriology until his death. Career Although writing systems have been studied for centuries by linguists, Gelb is widely regarded as the first scientific practitioner of the study of scripts, and coined the term grammatology to refer to the study of writing systems. In ''A Study of Writing'' (1952), he suggested that scripts evolve in a single direction, from logographic scripts to syllabaries to alphabets. This historical typology has been criticized as overly simplistic, forcing the data to fit the model and ignoring exceptional cases. Gelb's typology has since been refined by Peter T. Daniels and others. Gelb had contributed significantly to the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flatbread
A flatbread is bread made usually with flour; water, milk, yogurt, or other liquid; and salt, and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are Unleavened bread, unleavened, although some are leavened, such as pita bread. A Serving size, serving of 85g (~3 ounces) of pita bread has 234 Calorie, calories. Flatbreads range from below one millimeter to a few centimeters thick so that they can be easily eaten without being sliced. They can be baked in an oven, fried in hot oil, grilled over hot coals, cooked on a hot pan, tava, Comal (cookware), comal, or metal griddle, and eaten fresh or packaged and frozen for later use. History Flatbreads were amongst the earliest food processing, processed foods, and evidence of their production has been found at ancient sites in Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and the Indus Valley Civilisation, Indus civilization. The origin of all flatbread baking systems are said to be from the Fertile Crescent in West Asia, where they would su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
