Middle Eastern Cuisine

The shared cooking traditions of the Levant, Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula, unified across many national kitchens by flatbread, olive oil, chickpeas, lamb and a mezze table of small shared dishes. Levantine cooking (the eastern Mediterranean coast) leans on olive oil, tahini and fresh herbs; Gulf and Arabian Peninsula cooking leans on rice, dried lime and slow-spiced meats reflecting historic trade with South Asia and East Africa. Religious dietary law observed across the region belongs to Divinity's own coverage; this atlas holds the foodways. Familiar dishes across the region's many kitchens include kebabs, falafel, dolmas and baklava, and the Fertile Crescent within it, spanning ancient Mesopotamia, was among the first places wheat was cultivated, followed there by rye, barley, lentils and other staples that still anchor the region's cooking.