Middle Eastern Cuisine can be discovered at the many Middle Eastern Restaurants in Vancouver. Learning how to prepare these dishes is my endeavour here with this post, as I’ve often stated that if I had to choose one cuisine from around the world to be my permanent choice, it would be Middle Eastern Cuisine.
The Middle East is such a broad term too, obviously, since Greek and Lebanese food are not the same, yet they both are lumped in with Middle Eastern Cuisine, as do Turkish mainstays and even Afghan specialties. It includes Arab, Iranian/Persian, Israeli/Jewish, Assyrian, Kurdish, Cypriot, and Turkish cuisines.
In 2017, Middle Eastern cuisine was claimed by many sources to be one of the most popular and fastest growing ethnic cuisines in the US. Some commonly used ingredients include olives and olive oil, pitas, honey, sesame seeds, dates, sumac, chickpeas, mint, rice, and parsley. Some popular dishes include kebabs, dolma, falafel, baklava, yogurt, doner kebab, shawarma and Mulukhiyah.
The regional cuisines share a few things in common, this I know without having actually have been to the countries of the Middle East, it’s that they have traded olives, olive oil, goat cheese, figs and chickpeas, just to name a few of the obvious. However, there are major differences in regional meat, squid and fish preparation, as well as lamb and chicken.
As a young ski bum in my late teens, back when Blackcomb was conceived and born beside Whistler, my cousin and I would explore the new terrain during the weekdays and drive back to Vancouver every Friday, to avoid the weekends, we’d return Monday morning to hike up to the cornices and drop into the back bowls that were once exclusive to chopper skiers, now we’re were creaming the POW and end the day by non-stop run the springboard. Our favourite thing to start dinner, was Hummus and Pita Bread with Tabbouleh and Baba Ganoush.
Greek and Middle Eastern cuisine began my love affair with food
Whistler Village had Middle Eastern cuisine in several restaurants and we learned the love of the chickpea in the form of Humus and pita bread, with pitchers of beer, that was a mainstay of my winter diet at Whistler, plus the beginning of a life long love of all Middle Eastern cuisine.
In my early 20’s I lived in Melbourne Australia for a couple of years, where they boast the largest Greek population outside of Greece, my good mate there was a semi-pro soccer star named Denni Zeminuck, his team was almost all Greek or related to Greek and after the party, after his victory (or loss) we’d club until the sun comes up and eat the best gyros s and souvlakis I ever imagined, the owners sponsored his soccer team and the word was known far and wide the best late-night snack ever invented,
BTW = By the way: GOAT = “Greatest of all Time”
Baklava Photo credit: Victor Wong (sfe-co2) on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA Turkish Hot Food Photo credit: twiga_swala on Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA
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