Fattoush is a Levantine salad of toasted or fried pieces of pita bread combined with mixed greens and vegetables such as radishes, cucumber and tomatoes, a common part of everyday meals across the Levant. It belongs to a family of dishes built around using stale flatbread, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice and given its characteristic sour note by sumac, with some recipes adding pomegranate molasses. Its vegetables are cut into notably larger pieces than the finely chopped ingredients of tabbouleh, and its defining trait is the contrast between crisp toasted bread and fresh vegetables, with regional variations, particularly in Palestinian cuisine, using different binding ingredients and preparations.
Facts
Origin Period, From (Year)Wikidata Q1398251 (fattoush) P571 inception: 20th century (century precision). Wikipedia's "Fattoush" History section notes a reminiscent vegetarian tharid recipe in a 10th-century Arabic cookbook (Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq) as a precursor, distinct from the fattoush dish itself. Origin RegionSourced to the subject's own accountThe Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine) 2 FAQs
How can fattoush be made ahead without the bread going soft?
Keep the pitta and sumac apart from the salad and dressing until the morning.
One published recipe, from Good Food magazine and shown on BBC Good Food, solves it with timing. The night before, the cook tosses the salad ingredients together without the pitta bread or the sumac, makes the dressing, and keeps the two separate until the morning. The pitta is added at the end, so the bread stays out of the dressing until then.
Connections
In Cuisine
Source Fattoush (Wikipedia)
Open Questions
Source Fattoush (Wikipedia)
Uses Ingredient
Source Fattoush (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source Fattoush (Wikipedia)tier 3
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source Fattoush (Wikipedia)tier 3
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source Fattoush (Wikipedia)tier 3
Sources
1. Wikidata: Fattoush
Wikidata Q1398251, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source 2. Fattoush (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIntroduction
Fattoush (Arabic: فتّوش; also fattush, fatush, fattoosh, and fattouche) is a Levantine salad made from toasted or fried pieces of pita combined with mixed greens and other vegetables, such as radishes, cucumber and tomatoes.
- In Cuisine: Lebanese Cuisine, Wikipedia category list
- Uses Ingredient: Olive Oil, Infobox main_ingredient field: Pita, mixed greens, vegetables; Dressing: olive oil, lemon juice
In Group: Middle Eastern Salads, Lead paragraph
Fattoush (Arabic: فتّوش; also fattush, fatush, fattoosh, and fattouche) is a Levantine salad made from toasted or fried pieces of pita combined with mixed greens and other vegetables, such as radishes, cucumber and tomatoes.
View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
When did fattoush take shape as the distinct dish known today, rather than the earlier bread salads it may descend from?
Wikipedia's article on fattoush cites a 10th-century Arabic cookbook by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq recording a vegetarian tharid dish reminiscent of fattoush, and a late 19th-century description by Orientalist Reinhart Dozy of a bread-based dish close to today's fattoush, with the English word fattoush first attested in 1955. No source in the article fixes when the tharid-descended bread salad became the specific dish known as fattoush, so origin-start-year and origin-end-year are left unfilled rather than guessed from the loosely related medieval precedent.
What would resolve this A food-historical study tracing bread salads in the Levant from the medieval Arabic tharid tradition through to the first clearly identified fattoush recipes, with dated textual evidence in between the 10th and 20th centuries.
food historyFattoush (Wikipedia)
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