Cuisine

Lebanese

المطبخ اللبناني

Mezze is a meal structure, not a starter course invented for restaurants. Hummus is chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic, whipped until it is lighter than a paste. Tabbouleh is mostly parsley, with tomato, mint, spring onion and a little soaked bulgur — a herb salad, not a grain salad with parsley specks. Fattoush uses fried or toasted pita and a sour dressing, often with sumac. Kibbeh is pounded bulgur and meat, fried, baked or served raw depending on the house. Mujadara is lentils and rice with enough fried onion to taste bitter-sweet. Knafeh is pastry or semolina over cheese, soaked in syrup.

Lebanese cooking is Levantine cooking with a mountain-and-coast pantry and a restaurant culture that exported mezze worldwide. Overlap with Syrian and Palestinian kitchens is the honest baseline, not a territorial fight over hummus. Olive, lemon, sesame and wheat are older than the modern state. Pistachio knafeh chocolate is a pastry-shop hybrid, not a village sweet; knafeh itself is the older syrup-and-cheese craft. Naming Lebanon is useful for accent — extra parsley, a particular grill, a breakfast manoushe — as long as the plate is not treated as the only Levantine kitchen.

Parsley, lemon, tahini and olive oil do daily work. Garlic is raw in sauces and cooked on the grill. Shared plates arrive together. Tabbouleh should be green first. Hummus should taste of tahini and lemon, not of a refrigerator. Kibbeh wants a fine grind and a seasoned shell. Lebanese food is Levantine, not a unique island.