{"id":4919,"date":"2015-10-08T11:04:49","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T15:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastronomyatbu.com\/?p=4919"},"modified":"2018-03-28T17:49:31","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T21:49:31","slug":"dr-ari-ariels-talk-on-the-hummus-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/2015\/10\/08\/dr-ari-ariels-talk-on-the-hummus-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Ari Ariel\u2019s Talk on the Hummus Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kendall Vanderslice<\/p>\n

On September 30th<\/sup>, a rainy Wednesday evening, Dr. Ari Ariel presented the second Pepin lecture of the year, titled \u201cHummus Wars: Buying and Boycotting Middle Eastern Foods.\u201d The new head of the Gastronomy program began his presentation with a slideshow of the Guinness World Record competition between Lebanon and Israel, each vying for the award of producing the largest hummus dish. A 9,000-pound dish in Israel was quickly defeated by a group of Lebanese chefs. After a few rounds of back and forth battling, the record for largest dish of hummus was won by Chef Ramzi Choueiri and students in Lebanon for their 23,000 pound serving.<\/p>\n

\"Ariel<\/a>While this might sound like nothing more than friendly competition between neighboring countries, Dr. Ariel says he views the hummus record as an extension of the political climate. It is set, he explains, within \u201ca rhetoric of violence that turns cooks into combatants.\u201d Since 2008, Lebanon has been seeking a legal claim to hummus. By trademarking hummus in the European Union, they aim to regulate the proportions of ingredients allowed in the tasty dip and require Lebanese recognition on every label.<\/p>\n

The history of hummus is largely unknown. In Arabic, the word simply means \u201cchickpea,\u201d but the dish hummus bi tahini <\/em>has become so popular around the world that it is commonly referred to as simply hummus. <\/em>The exact origin remains a mystery \u2013 the earliest recipe is found in a 13th<\/sup> century cookbook \u2013 yet several countries claim ownership of the dish. Because hummus exists between multiple foodways and constructions of identity, this attempt to trademark the dish raises questions of authenticity and gastro-nationalism. Who has a right to regulate claims to authenticity? Is authenticity a product of, or a producer of, identity and nationality?<\/p>\n

According to Dr. Ariel, the hummus wars prove that, while food can serve to reconcile, it can also push things in the opposite direction. Far from a bridge to peace, this culinary rivalry creates a new space within which political conflict can work itself out. Whether this non-violent space will remain such is yet to be discovered. So the next time you reach for some hummus, remember that the dish is a little deeper than you thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kendall Vanderslice On September 30th, a rainy Wednesday evening, Dr. Ari Ariel presented the second Pepin lecture of the year, titled \u201cHummus Wars: Buying and Boycotting Middle Eastern Foods.\u201d The new head of the Gastronomy program began his presentation with a slideshow of the Guinness World Record competition between Lebanon and Israel, each vying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14625,"featured_media":4920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,11,12,15,21,25],"tags":[70,208,364,387,448,452,619,674],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8264,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4919\/revisions\/8264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}