User:Peter cohen/sandbox

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Each of the main ingredients of hummus were known in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds but it is unknown whether hummus, or a hummus-like dish was made. The chick-pea was used as a food item in Palestine before 4000BC and was common street dish in ancient Rome.^[1] Sesame was grown in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian gardens and is mentioned by Columella.^[2] The olive originated in Syria and Palestine where it was cutivated by the fourth millenium BC. A variety may have been indigenous to Crete where it was being cultivated by 2500BC. There are many mentions of olive oil in the Bible, and it was exported from Palestine to places such as Egypt. Several Roman writers indicate that salt was used in extracting the oil.^[3] The lemon was last to arrive in the Middle East and Mediterranean world, originating in India. However depictions of the fruit have been found at Pompeii and Tusculum, so it had reached the Roman world, at least as a luxury import, by the first century.^[4] However, there is no clear evidence as to where and when the dish of hummus originated. Sources such as Cooking in Ancient Civilizations by Cathy K. Kaufman [1] contain speculative recipes for ancient Egyptian hummus, substituting vinegar for lemon juice, but acknowledge that we do not know how the Egyptians ate their chick-peas. Similarly, no recipe for hummus has been identified among the many books on cooking surviving from ancient Rome.

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I just copied what I had done in the article over here. With the reference. Should I sort of write a combination, or you? For the last few days I have been laid up from a fall and not doing much.

While the antiquity of hummus bi tahini is not well documented, the use of the two principle ingredients in that dish historically is more firmly understood. Of the two, chickpeas have been an article of human food for over 10000 years. Beans, lentils and chickpeas were favored in the Near East, central America, and parts of Europe. Archeological evidence identifies chickpeas in the Sumarian diet before 2500 B.C. They are given in a 13th century work by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn al-Karim al Katab al Baghdadi of Persia for a 'simple dish' of meat, pulses and spices.

The second important item, tahini or sesame paste, however lacks a historical context. Sesame was of course common in cuisine, in the Roman kitchen and in the Persian kitchen, but that deals with sesame oil, not the paste that is a part of hummus bi tahini.

At least regarding the components of hummus bi tahini, no firm timing or history that might combine the items into what is now the well-understood food can be documented.

From Reay Tannahill, Food in History, Stein and Day Publishers, New York 1973, ISBN 0-8128-1467-1