About this item

The souk, or marketplace, is the beating heart of Arabic cuisine and culture - this book celebrates the generosity of this rich food culture. The word mezze stems from the Arabic term tamazzaza - a single word that broadly embraces the idea of enjoying small portions of food and taking the time to indulge one's taste buds, eyes, and nose by exposing them to a wide range of aromas and flavors. A complete mezze table is formed when many of these warm and cold dishes are presented together, as a meal in itself. The mezze culture originated in the Ottoman Empire and can be found in the whole of the Levantine Mediterranean: from Greece and Cyprus to Turkey, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria. But it is Lebanon, the cultural home of the authors, which has really developed and is famed for the richest, most extensive, and most sophisticated mezze culture.