Middle Eastern

Broken pieces of toasted pita bread are sometimes placed at the bottom of the serving dish to become well moistened and soggy with the dressing.

Another lovely Turkish way of preparing eggplants.

A Moroccan salad with an intriguing combination of flavors

A rustic Lebanese salad.

Tomatoes are banadoura in Arabic and tamatem in Egypt.

Fattoush is a rustic country salad of Syria and Lebanon which is on the standard menu of Lebanese restaurants. The old, traditional way was to moisten and soften the toasted bread with water and a little lemon juice before imbibing it further with the dressing, which made it deliciously soggy. Nowadays it is usual to put the bread in crisp, like French croutons.

This salad brings back for me memories of the garlands of islands floating in the deep blue sea, the plaintive sound of the bouzouki, and the sugar-cake houses.

The fragrance of mint goes well with cucumber.

Kisir is a filling and luscious Turkish country salad. Chili flakes or a chili pepper give it a thrilling zing.

This is a homely version of the very green parsley-and-mint salad with buff-colored speckles of bulgur wheat you find in all Lebanese restaurants all over the world. Like many items on the standard Lebanese restaurant menu, it was born in the mountain region of Zahlé, in the Bekáa Valley of Lebanon, where the local anise flavored grape liquor arak is produced. Renowned for its fresh air and its natural springs and the river Bardaouni, which cascades down the mountain, the region acquired a mythical reputation for gastronomy. In 1920 two cafés opened by the river. They gave away assorted nuts, seeds, olives, bits of cheese, and raw vegetables with the local arak. Gradually the entire valley became filled with open-air cafés, each larger and more luxurious than the next, each vying to attract customers who flocked from all over the Middle East with ever more varied mezze. The reputation of the local mountain-village foods they offered, of which tabbouleh was one of the jewels, spread far and wide and became a national institution. What started as a relatively substantial salad, rich with bulgur, was transformed over the years into an all-green herby affair. When the first edition of my book came out, I received letters telling me I had too much bulgur in that recipe. One letter from Syria explained that mine was the way people made the salad many years ago, when they needed to fill their stomachs. You see, many of my relatives left Syria for Egypt a hundred years ago, and that was how they continued to make it. The following is a contemporary version.

In this nutty Turkish salad with an intense flavor, the bulgur is softened in the juice of fresh tomatoes.

In this most common of Arab salads, all the ingredients are cut very small. Do not prepare it too long before serving, and dress it just before serving.

You need good feta cheese for this. Serve with pita bread to dip in.

The salad is made in the Lebanese mountain villages with a fermented goat cheese, but you can use a strong, crumbly goat cheese.

This refreshing Iranian salad has a pure and delicate flavor.

This popular Turkish salad can be served as a cold summer soup. We sometimes used to drain the yogurt through a fine cloth to thicken it (see page 111), but now you can buy a thick strained Greek variety.

Chickpeas are so common in the Arab world that they could be a symbol of it. The pureed version combined with tahina has become ubiquitous in the West, but this one, without tahina, called “hummus habb” or “sada,” is nice too, if you dress it with plenty of lemon juice and olive oil.

This salad puree is the most widely known and appreciated of all outside the Middle East (abroad it is known simply as hummus). It is the constant companion of shish kebab and ta’amia in Oriental restaurants and is also good with fish or eggplants.