FALAFEL: MIDEAST STREET FOOD GAINS FANS

Already a choice street food and vegetarian fave, falafel could actually hold the key to uniting fractious nations. Part of the tradition of every Middle Eastern country, made its own special way in each, falafel is like a common language, optimistically reports The Salt food blog. The basics stay intact--some form of beans, herbs and spices, ground up into a ball and fried until crisp—but regional variations abound. A quick tour of falafel country: • Egyptian falafels, or taameya, are made from fava beans and are spicy with the inclusion of garlic, scallions, leeks and onions with pepper. Cayenne pepper is used in the Alexandria type. It’s wrapped primarily in a whole wheat pita bread and salad with Tahini sauce. • In Lebanon, a mix of fava and garbanzo beans is used, with plenty of fresh green herbs. • In the Sudan, garbanzo beans are the main ingredient, mixed with onions, garlic, parsley, cilantro and cumin. • In Israel, chickpeas, or garbanzo beans, are used instead of fava beans. They are soaked in baking soda and ground together with onion, parsley, sesame seeds and spices like cumin, chili powder and coriander. • In Lebanon tabbouleha salad is eaten with falafel. Cucumber, turnip and onions are also included as accessories for this dish. • In Syria, sumac is used in falafel. • In other Middle Eastern countries French fries may be included on the side. And speaking of fries…so popular is falafel in the Mideast that in some locations, McDonald’s offers a version called, of course, the McFalafel. More frequently, falafel is served by street vendors, tucked into a pita, stuffed with salads and pickles, doused with tahini sauce or hot sauce, and topped with hummus. Its origins are a matter of some debate. Most credit Egypt as falafel’s ancestral land, going all the way back to paintings inside the tombs of pharaohs that show cooks making the dish, or tracing the roots back 1,000 years to the Christian Copts of Egypt who created falafel because they were forbidden from eating meat during Lent. The word falafel itself gives credence to those origins, as it may have come from the Arabic “filfil” meaning pepper or the Egyptian “pha la phel” meaning “of many beans.” During Ramadan, falafel balls are eaten as the part of the meal that breaks the fast after sunset. Other theories suggest falafel first appeared on the subcontinent of India around the 6th century. And still others claim the ancient Jewish nation invented it while slaves in Egypt. Even today, the question of who invented it is still hotly discussed. When Anthony Bourdain visited the Middle East this fall as part of his CNN show, he queried Yotam Ottolenghi, co-author of the best-selling cookbook Jerusalem. “There really is no answer to this,” replied Ottolenghi. “But the question of food appropriation or who owns the food is massive here. You can go on arguing about it forever.” Wherever and whenever it began, it spread across the Middle East. By the 1940-50s, early Israeli pioneers took on the local Arab version made with chickpeas, creating a nationally iconic dish. New varieties keep cropping up: at the Falafel Queens in Israel, for example, red falafel features jalapeño flavor, and is served with roasted peppers, tomatoes and spicy yogurt sauce, while orange falafel is made with sweet potatoes and accompanied by cabbage, honey and ginger tahini. In America, waves of Middle Eastern immigrants popularized the dish, and by the 1970s, falafel had infiltrated major metropolitan areas. In NYC, falafel stands are now as ubiquitous as hot dogs or pizza. In 2010, Subway made forays into Americanizing falafel, offering the sandwich at select locations. The originator, owner of Zaibak Brothers, Chicago’s leading Falafel Company, said: “The falafel’s growing popularity shows we have become open-minded as Americans. Mediterranean food is delicious. It’s about time everyone knew it.”