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"Food habits Middle East History."
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Food
In part one, David Waines looks at the medieval context of food. One of the consequences of the rapid emergence of Islam across the Middle East was expressed by a deep curiosity in and absorption of several indigenous food cultures and the introduction of others across the Islamic domains. The first part introduces the reader to various aspects of Middle Eastern food culture that were expressed in various types of work, written in Arabic, during the period from the early eighth century Muslim dominions to the foundation of the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century.
Book Chapter
Insatiable appetite : food as cultural signifier in the Middle East and beyond
\"Insatiable Appetite: Food as Cultural Signifier in the Middle East and Beyond explores the cultural ramifications of food and foodways in the Mediterranean, and Arab-Muslim countries in particular. The volume addresses the cultural meanings of food from a wider chronological scope, from antiquity to present, adopting approaches from various disciplines, including classical Greek philology, Arabic literature, Islamic studies, anthropology, and history. The contributions to the book are structured around six thematic parts, ranging in focus from social status to religious prohibitions, gender issues, intoxicants, vegetarianism, and management of scarcity\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Shifts in food consumption patterns in the Levant: a systematic review of the last six decades
Background
Food consumption patterns have changed tremendously since the mid-twentieth century, with a rapid global nutritional shift raising concerns, particularly in disadvantaged regions such as the Eastern Mediterranean region (EMR). Given that food intake is very context-specific, this research examines food consumption patterns in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, representing the contemporary Levant region.
Methods
A systematic review was conducted by searching PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and CINAHL. The eligibility criteria were to include only original peer-reviewed observational studies reporting individual-level food consumption among local Jordanians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians. Extracted data were synthesized through descriptive statistics and presented in tables and charts. The risk of bias was assessed using the tool developed by Hoy et al. for prevalence studies.
Results
A total of 43 articles that measured and reported food consumption at the individual level for the populations in these countries were included. Findings reveal that in the 1960s, diets in the region were primarily local, seasonal, and plant-based, with moderate to low animal product intake. By the 1990s, a noticeable shift occurred, marked by increased consumption of processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and animal products, with minimal increase in fruit and vegetable intake. Most studies were conducted in Lebanon, limiting the generalizability of findings across the Levant countries.
Conclusion
This review presents an understanding of food consumption changes on the level of food items, food groups, and dietary patterns specific to the Levant. Future studies on food consumption patterns should prioritize national surveys using valid, reliable, and cultural-specific measurement tools and provide detailed, age-disaggregated dietary data. Public health interventions are needed to address the ongoing dietary shift, which is unfolding amid political instability, economic crises, and food insecurity.
Journal Article
Nurturing Masculinities
Two structuring concepts have predominated in discussions concerning how Middle Eastern men enact their identity culturally: domination and patriarchy. Nurturing Masculinities dispels the illusion that Arab men can be adequately represented when we speak of them only in these terms. By bringing male perspectives into food studies, which typically focus on the roles of women in the production and distribution of food, Nefissa Naguib demonstrates how men interact with food, in both political and domestic spheres, and how these interactions reflect important notions of masculinity in modern Egypt. In this classic ethnography, narratives about men from a broad range of educational backgrounds, age groups, and social classes capture a holistic representation of masculine identity and food in modern Egypt on familial, local, and national levels. These narratives encompass a broad range of issues and experiences, including explorations of traditions surrounding food culture; displays of caregiving and love when men recollect the taste, feel, and fragrance of food as they discuss their desires to feed their families well and often; and the role that men, working to ensure the equitable distribution of food, played during the Islamist movement of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011. At the core of Nurturing Masculinities is the idea that food is a powerful marker of manhood, fatherhood, and family structure in contemporary Egypt, and by better understanding these foodways, we can better understand contemporary Egyptian society as a whole.
eBook
Festive Meals in Ancient Israel
The festive meal texts of Deuteronomy 12–26 depict Israel as a unified people participating in cultic banquets – a powerful and earthy image for both preexilic Judahite and later audiences. Comparison of Deuteronomy 12:13–27, 14:22–29, 16:1–17, and 26:1–15 with pentateuchal texts like Exodus 20–23 is broadened to highlight the rhetorical potential of the Deuteronomic meal texts in relation to the religious and political circumstances in Israel during the Neo-Assyrian and later periods. The texts employ the concrete and rich image of festive banquets, which the monograph investigates in relation to comparative ancient Near Eastern texts and iconography, the zooarchaeological remains of the ancient Levant, and the findings of cultural anthropology with regard to meals.
eBook
Mugharat an-Nachcharini: A specialized sheep-hunting camp reveals high-altitude habitats in the earliest Neolithic of the Central Levant
The earliest Neolithic of southwest Asia is generally perceived and portrayed as a period of emerging economic practices that anticipated full-fledged food-producing economies. This first Neolithic, however, can also be seen as the last gasp of an earlier way of life that remained fundamentally Epipaleolithic in character. While people at this time had begun to cultivate some of the plant foods gathered in preceding periods, and to live for lengthy periods in sites with substantial architecture, they also relied on hunting for a significant portion of their diet and logistical movement across landscapes to exploit diverse environments. The objective of our research on Nachcharini Cave, the only excavated early Neolithic site in the high mountains of northeastern Lebanon, is to evaluate its role in a form of logistical organization not well attested at other sites in the Levant during this period. On the basis of material that Bruce Schroeder excavated in the 1970s, we present here for the first time analyses of faunal and lithic evidence from Nachcharini Cave, along with new radiocarbon dates that place the major occupation layer of the site firmly in the earliest Neolithic. We conclude that Nachcharini was a short-term hunting camp that was periodically used over some two centuries.
Journal Article
Falafel Nation
When people discuss food in Israel, their debates ask politically charged questions: Who has the right to falafel? Whose hummus is better? But Yael Raviv'sFalafel Nationmoves beyond the simply territorial to divulge the role food plays in the Jewish nation. She ponders the power struggles, moral dilemmas, and religious and ideological affiliations of the different ethnic groups that make up the \"Jewish State\" and how they relate to the gastronomy of the region. How do we interpret the recent upsurge in the Israeli culinary scene-the transition from ideological asceticism to the current deluge of fine restaurants, gourmet stores, and related publications and media?
Focusing on the period between the 1905 immigration wave and the Six-Day War in 1967, Raviv explores foodways from the field, factory, market, and kitchen to the table. She incorporates the role of women, ethnic groups, and different generations into the story of Zionism and offers new assertions from a secular-foodie perspective on the relationship between Jewish religion and Jewish nationalism. A study of the changes in food practices and in attitudes toward food and cooking,Falafel Nationexplains how the change in the relationship between Israelis and their food mirrors the search for a definition of modern Jewish nationalism.
eBook
Eating mud crabs in Kandahar
These sometimes harrowing, frequently funny, and always riveting stories about food and eating under extreme conditions feature the diverse voices of journalists who have reported from dangerous conflict zones around the world during the past twenty years. A profile of the former chef to Kim Jong Il of North Korea describes Kim's exacting standards for gourmet fare, which he gorges himself on while his country starves. A journalist becomes part of the inner circle of an IRA cell thanks to his drinking buddies. And a young, inexperienced female journalist shares mud crab in a foxhole with an equally young Hamid Karzai. Along with tales of deprivation and repression are stories of generosity and pleasure, sometimes overlapping. This memorable collection, introduced and edited by Matt McAllester, is seasoned by tragedy and violence, spiced with humor and good will, and fortified, in McAllester's words, with \"a little more humanity than we can usually slip into our newspapers and magazine stories.\"
eBook
Out of the East
The demand for spices in medieval Europe was extravagant and was reflected in the pursuit of fashion, the formation of taste, and the growth of luxury trade. It inspired geographical and commercial exploration ,as traders pursued such common spices as pepper and cinnamon and rarer aromatic products, including ambergris and musk. Ultimately, the spice quest led to imperial missions that were to change world history. This engaging book explores the demand for spices: why were they so popular, and why so expensive? Paul Freedman surveys the history, geography, economics, and culinary tastes of the Middle Ages to uncover the surprisingly varied ways that spices were put to use--in elaborate medieval cuisine, in the treatment of disease, for the promotion of well-being, and to perfume important ceremonies of the Church. Spices became symbols of beauty, affluence, taste, and grace, Freedman shows, and their expense and fragrance drove the engines of commerce and conquest at the dawn of the modern era. Summary reprinted by permission of Yale University Press
eBook