''Booza'' () is a frozen dairy dessert originally from the
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 toda ...
made with milk, cream, sugar,
mastic and ''
sahlab'' (orchid flour), giving it its distinguished stretchy and chewy texture—much like
dondurma. It has since spread throughout the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
.
Booza origins dates back to at least 1500 AD in the region of Syria and is sometimes referred to as the "first ice cream in the world". Booza is traditionally made through a process of pounding
and stretching in a freezer drum, instead of the more usual churning method used in other ice creams, leading to a creamy yet dense texture.
Ancient Damascus
In
Al-Hamidiyah Souq in the Old City of
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
, there is an ice cream store named
Bakdash that is known throughout the Arab world for its stretchy and chewy ice cream. It is a popular attraction for tourists as well.
International usage
A brother and sister team (Jilbert El-Zmetr and Tedy Altree-Williams) pioneered and created the first packaged version of ''booza'' in Australia in 2011. Using local ingredients together with
sahlab and
mastic (from the island of Chios, Greece), they recreated the traditional form of ''booza'' and packaged this in a take-home format available to consumers.
In 2018, a ''booza'' scoop-shop named Republic of Booza opened in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick and East Williamsburg to the east; and the East River to the west. It was an independe ...
, US, by Tamer Rabbani and Michael Sadler.
See also
*
List of dairy products
This is a list of dairy products. A dairy product is food produced from the milk of mammals. A production plant for the processing of milk is called a dairy or a dairy factory. Dairy farming is a class of agriculture, agricultural, or an animal hu ...
*
List of ice cream varieties by country
References
{{Levantine cuisine
Mastic ice creams