Falafel:
This article is about the Middle Eastern food. For the film, see Falafel (film). Falafel (Arabic: فلافل falaafil (help·info), or in Egyptian and Sudanese Arabic, طعمية ta'meya) is a fried ball or patty made from spiced fava beans and/or chickpeas. It is a popular form of fast food in the Middle East, where it is also served as a mezze.
The Arabic word "falafel" (falāfil) is the plural of فلفل (filfil) 'pepper'.[1] Variant spellings in English include felafel and filafil.
Falafel is usually served in pita bread, either inside the pita, which acts as a pocket, or wrapped in a flat pita. In many countries falafel is a popular street food or fast food. The falafel balls, whole or crushed, may be topped with salads, pickled vegetables and hot sauce, and drizzled with tahini-based sauces. Falafel balls may also be eaten alone as a snack or served as part of a mezze. During Ramadan, they are sometimes eaten as part of an iftar, the meal which breaks the daily fast after sunset.
Falafel has been part of the diet of Egyptians and the people of the Middle East (Muslims, Christians and Mizrahi Jews among them) for centuries.[2]
[edit] History
The actual origins of falafel are not certain; according to Ynetnews, "A common theory suggests falafel was invented some 1000 years ago by the Egyptian Copts, who brought it with them to the rest of the Middle East."[3] Originally made with fava beans, the dish migrated northwards to Syria and Palestine, chickpeas were introduced instead.[2] The chickpea was used as a food item in the Levant before 4000 BC.[4]
[edit] Ingredients
Falafel is made from fava beans or chickpeas or a combination of the two. The Egyptian variation uses exclusively fava beans, while other variations may only use chickpeas. Falafel made exclusively from chickpeas became popular in Israel because of favism, a potentially fatal genetic disease among some Mediterranean Jews causing a hemolytic reaction to fava beans. Unlike many other bean patties, in falafel the beans are not cooked prior to use. Instead they are soaked, possibly skinned, then ground with the addition of a small quantity of onion, parsley, spices (including cumin), and bicarbonate of soda, and deep fried at a high temperature. Sesame seeds may be added to the balls before they are fried; this is particularly common when falafel is served as a dish on its own rather than as a sandwich filling.
Recent culinary trends have seen the chickpea falafel have more success than fava bean falafel. Chickpea falafels are served across the Middle East, and have been popularized by expatriates of those countries living abroad. However, fava-bean falafel continue to predominate in Egypt and Sudan and their respective expatriate communities, and Egyptians are fond of deriding chickpea falafel as inferior.
[edit] Variations
Outside the Middle East, pita bread is often used as a pocket and stuffed with the different ingredients; in Arab countries a round khubz bread, 'eish' in Egypt, is halved, and the two resulting round pieces are used to create a cigar-shaped wrap. In Arab countries, hummus (chickpeas pureed with tahini) is rarely an ingredient. The usual sauce is tahini (sesame seed paste) thinned with water and lemon. The most common salad ingredients are tomato and parsley. In Lebanon parsley is mixed with chopped mint leaves. It is also common in Syria and Lebanon to add pickles; the two canonical ones are pickled turnip, colored pink with beetroot, and pickled cucumber. Recently, there has been a new "filled" falafel, its center usually consisting of ground meat or minced onions or a boiled egg. These fillings are wrapped by the uncooked falafel mixture, and then deep fried.
The salads or the pita itself may be seasoned with sumac or salt; alternatively, these may be sprinkled on top. In Syria, sumac is widely used.
[edit] Related dishes
[edit] Falafel in Israel
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Falafel is immensely popular in Israel today; indeed it is sometimes considered the "national food of Israel".[5]
According to cookbook author Claudia Roden, "[I]t wasn't until hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries emigrated to Israel in the 1950s that falafel truly became an Israeli emblem".[2] The proliferation of falafel stands, operated in particular by Yemenite Jews, "made it possible to incorporate elements like falafel without referring to them as Palestinian"[2]
A popular Israeli song composed by Dan Almagor in 1958, "And We Have Falafel," included a line claiming falafel as an exclusive Israeli provenance.[2] By the 1970s, Jewish cookbooks included recipes for falafel that made no mention of its origins, leading many Arabs to resent what they regarded as the cultural appropriation of this iconic food.[6]
Some Israeli Jews and non-Israeli Jews alike have since recognized the controversy. For example, Ammiel Alcalay, a Jewish professor of Middle Eastern culture, has described the Israeli adoption of falafel as "total appropriation" and Dan Almagor notes that he still would have composed that song on falafel today, "but with a line about the dish's Arab origins". On the other hand, Joan Nathan, the author of The Foods of Israel Today, states "The ingredients are as old as you're going to get. These are the foods of the land, and the land goes back to the Bible. There have been Jews and Arabs in the Middle East forever, and the idea that Jews stole it doesn't hold any water." Geoffrey Weill, of Israel's Ministry of Tourism dismisses the whole idea that falafel is owned by a country: "Have we stolen pasta from the Italians? What kind of nonsense is that?"[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Bibliography
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