Here are a couple of interesting and somewhat amusing articles from Asharq Alawsat on battles taking place in the Middle East. These don’t involve guns (yet), but have all the high rhetoric anyone could desire:

Iran Faces U.S. Challenge in “Pistachio War”

This revolves around the fact that US production of pistachio nuts is overtaking that of Iran. Bad weather and drought have led to a drop in Iranian production; California, on the other hand, is seeing its production double. It’s important to the Iranians because up to 20% of the population in some provinces depend on the nut for its economic livelihood. And, of course, it provides another hammer with which to beat the Great Satan.

Personally, I think Iranian nuts are fine, though I prefer Turkish. Syria, too, has an important pistachio industry that includes green (i.e., unripe) pistachios which are quite different and amazing.

Hummus War Looms between Lebanon and Israel

The headline of this piece describes the issue well. A group of Lebanese are trying to assert a ‘country of origin’ claim on the name of the food preparation hummus against what they consider illegal encroachment by the Israelis. They cite the success of the Greeks in protecting the name of ‘feta’ by restricting it to products made in Greece exclusively, similar to protections provided other foodstuffs like Champagne or Parmesan cheese. This is probably a losing battle, however, as hummus, like baba ganoush and tabbouleh are pretty much ‘Middle Eastern’ generically.

Perhaps a stronger case could be made for the case of Egyptian ta’meya, made of fava beans (ful nabed) against the grossly inferior Israeli falafel, made of chickpeas (hummus).