They call Mesopotamia, the fertile triangle of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the birthplace of civilization. Agriculture was born here 12,000 years ago, and, since that nativity, food and drink have never seemed far from anyone's mind. Man first cultivated wheat here, and figs, dates, pomegranates, barley, and nuts were not far behind. Even our English word “gourmet,” meaning lover of fine food, derives from the Farsi word for stew: Ghormeh.
Geography accounts for much of the region's fascination with food. The Mid-East has been a crossroads, the cultural as well as geographical midpoint of the Euro-Asian-African world, and thus a hub of cookbook exchange. As travelers and merchants met here, they exchanged the foods and ingredients of their homelands and returned home with newly acquired culinary concepts. Early traders dealt in citrus, rice and spices. The Persians, who occupied the land of modern day Iran, laid the foundation for Mid-East cuisine when they incorporated rice, poultry and fruits into their diets. Tribal wars brought the portable foods of Arab warriors—figs, dates and nuts—to conquered lands. Mix in spices from India and beyond, pastries from the Turks, okra from Africa, and various contributions from Slavs, Mongols, and Moors and you begin to see the melting pot nature of the cuisine of the Middle East.