Trouble brewing over hummus

2008-10-08 14:15

Beirut - A battle over hummus and tabbouleh is shaping up between Lebanon and Israel - two neighbours still technically at war - with efforts under way to clearly identify such dishes as exclusively Lebanese.

"In our mind tabbouleh and hummus should belong to the Lebanese just as feta cheese belongs to the Greeks," said Fadi Abboud, president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association.

"Now when hummus is known all over the world as an Israeli Kosher dip or a Greek dip, that's not fair," he added. "This and other foods like tabbouleh are all Lebanese specialities and they should be registered as such."

He said his group is preparing to go to the European Union to register the names of certain dishes as Lebanese.

Legislation is also pending in the Lebanese Parliament to protect the names of certain geographical locations specific to Lebanon so that products cannot be marketed under the name of a town or region.

"What appals me with Israel is that they are (marketing) hummus as a traditional Israeli product when it is clearly a Lebanese product," said Ramez Abi Nader, a member of the Lebanese Industrialists Association.

Hommus is a dip made of chick peas, sesame paste, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic while tabbouleh is a salad made with parsley, bulgur wheat, scallions and tomatoes.

Both dishes, as well as others such as baba ghannouj, an eggplant dip, are widely popular in Israel and around the globe.

Abboud and Abi Nader said they believe Lebanon has suffered millions of dollars in losses from such dishes being marketed in various countries without being produced in Lebanon.

They said their case was similar to the one over feta cheese in which a European Union court ruled in 2002 that feta is exclusively Greek.

Kamal Mouzawak, founder of Souk El Tayeb, a farmer's market in Beirut, said it was unthinkable that tabbouleh or hummus could be marketed as other than Lebanese.

"When one speaks of Italy the first thing that comes to mind is pizza and pasta, when you speak about the States it's hamburger and when you speak of Lebanon it should be tabbouleh and company," Mouzawak said.

"It's important that we protect our foods because they are part of our originis," he added. "When I want to recount my origins I do so through hummus and tabbouleh rather than a history book."

- AFP