Talk:Tabbouleh

External link relevant?

I removed an external link to "Kosher Tabouli recipe at chabad.org", with the edit comment "unnecessary external (spam?) link". User:PinchasC restored it with the comment "why is it unnecessary?". First of all, queries like this should, I think, be asked on the Talk page rather than to a revert presuming an unsatisfactory answer. But here is my answer:

There is already a recipe for tabouli in the article. Unless the linked-to recipe has some claim to being a particularly good recipe, I am not sure what its value is. The link calls it a "Kosher" tabouli recipe, but tabouli is inherently kosher since it is vegetarian, so there is no added value here. The linked-to site is not a specialty site on cooking in general, or Lebanese cooking in particular, but in fact a site promoting a particular religious position. If the reader just wants some tabouli recipe without any specific qualities, it is easy enough to search for it on the Web. So I don't see the value of linking it. --Macrakis 21:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

It has a value in it being a different recipe than the the one listed on wikipedia. The recipe given on the external link would be more in line with those used by the Jewish community. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 05:43, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

There are lots of different recipes for tabbouleh. We surely aren't going to link to all of them. As for this particular recipe, the proportions are slightly different, and it doesn't include allspice or hot peppers. That's about it -- and I think it is right that those ingredients be marked as optional. Moreover, I find it hard to believe that "the Jewish community" has more of a standard recipe than anyone else, or for that matter that there is a Jewish community. Indeed, the linked-to site is Hasidic, an Ashkenazi group which I am pretty sure has no tradition of tabbouleh-making. Should we also include a Japanese Buddhist or Californian vegetarian recipe for tabbouleh? --Macrakis 16:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

That would be interesting to see how different cultures modified the recipe to fit their eating habits. Asy out pointed out the site linked has less spices which is typical of Ashkenazic food. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 17:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

A study of variants may well be interesting, but I hardly think that one recipe on a Hasidic site constitutes good evidence. I would guess, in fact, that it is just an individual variant by some cook who happens to be Hasidic. I wouldn't call the version of tabboulleh I make at home the "Greek variant". I will try to get some evidence of the range of variation of tabbouleh and put it in the article. --Macrakis 19:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

the mezze food group is a Lebanese food group...tabbouleh is a Lebanese food.

TALK ABOUT STUPIDITY. MEZZE IS AN ARABIC WORD, TABOULEH IS AN ARABIC FOOD, NOT SPECIFICALLY LEBANESE. GET OVER IT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.163.173.127 (talk) 17:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Tabouli vs. Tabbouleh

Article is currently under 'tabouli'. I believe it should be moved to 'tabbouleh'. Tabbouleh is more common (300k vs. 200k hits on Google) and also is more faithful to the original Arabic. Comments? --Macrakis 23:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I would agree. I am fairly new to Wikipedia, but there should be a way that both 'tabbouleh' and 'tabouli' could be used as search terms. Maybe change the article name to 'tabbouleh' while still allowing the search term 'tabouli' to be used. --User:LongWalkShortPier 26 May 2006 (EST)

I also agree. I live in the Middle East, and in transliteration it always has a "tabouleh"/"tabbouleh" spelling.

I also think the image needs to be changed, or there needs to be clarity of East vs West tabbouleh. I was quite surprised to find out when I first moved here that tabbouleh here is nearly all chopped parsley, hardly any wheat is used. I have had tabbouleh in Oman, the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt and Kuwait, and it has always been the nearly-all-parsley variety. Back in the UK, it was often called "cracked wheat salad" and there was barely any green to be seen. (Istara 22:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC))

I agree. I was quite surprised to see this pic. Tabbouleh is green to me. This pic in the article looks gross.

Relocation

Since this is almost a recipe, i.e. there are ingredients listed, I think that it should be considered as such and relocated to the Wikimedia Cookbook at Wikibooks.--203.184.26.176 23:01, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Tabouli ingredients

Tabouli in its source, the Middle East, is mint not parsley. Two sources, basic cookbooks by indigenous cooks, one from Lebanon and one from Syria, restrict the greens to mint. Living in Lebanon I con confirm that parsley was NOT an ingredient in the homes of any of my Lebanese friends or in the restaurants I visited. In other places, particularly in the U.S., parsley is common, but in most cases maybe up to half of the total greens, except in 'modern' salad listings where parsley may be 3/4 of the greens. --Dumarest 19:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Either way, HOW can people EAT that much mint and/or parsley? Those are both garnishes meant to be eaten in tiny amounts or not eaten at all.. actually consuming large amounts of them makes me puke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 04:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Levantine vs. Arab

Should we be calling Tabbouleh "Levantine", "Arabic", or "Middle Eastern Arabic"? I see no discussion of this above, despite what our anon friends are saying in their reverts. I am not sure what "Middle Eastern Arabic" as opposed to "Arabic" is supposed to mean-- is this meant to exclude North Africa? In addition to North Africa, I believe that tabbouleh is also not a traditional food of Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. Of course it can be found there, just as hamburgers can, and just as tabbouleh can be found in Chicago, but I hope we agree that hamburgers shouldn't be called Arabic and tabbouleh shouldn't be called Chicagoan! I will try to find some more solid sources. In the meantime I will not revert the anon's changes. --Macrakis (talk) 22:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Tabouleh IS a dish native to Middle Eastern nations including Iraq (which is not part of the Levant). Further more, the term "Levant" itself is nothing more than a term that attempts to divide people. --24.56.137.185 (talk) 02:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

All the sources I have found point to the Levant/Mashriq/Greater Syria as the home of tabbouleh, both in the sense that it was probably invented their and in the sense that it is usually identified with that region:

Of the Arab countries resulting from the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the cities of the three countries into which Syria was divided display a degree of cultural homogeneity, sharing food ingredients and styles. In Ottoman times, Aleppo was commercially and culturally the centre of a region comprising southern Anatolia and north-west Iraq (the Mosul province). Their food is to the present day distinguished by common themes. ... Distinctive mezzes have characterized this culture.... Also the now familiar repertoire of the Lebanese retaurant mezze tray of tabbuleh, mutabbal and so on are mostly parts of the general Syrian repertoire, some of it shared with Anatolia. (Sami Zubaida, "National, Communal and Global Dimensions in Middle Eastern Food Cultures" in Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper, A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, London and New York, 1994 and 2000, ISBN 1-86064-603-4, p. 35. Zubaida is Iraqi.)

I have heard, in the old days, Baghdadi women and cooks jeer at Syrians...for being very economical with meat: all those salads and pastes that were just being introduced in Iraq, tabbuleh, homus, ... (Zubaida, p. 37; my emphasis)

Tabbouleh...is a great Lebanese favorite (Claudia Roden, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, p. 86 -- Roden is Egyptian, by the way)

...two dishes which indisputably belong to Lebanon and Syria and always adorn the mezze table, namely hummus and tabbouleh... (Anissa Helou, Oxford Companion to Food, s.v. Lebanon and Syria)

...Lebanon (widely perceived as its original home territory)... (Oxford Companion to Food, s.v. tabbouleh)

تبولة‎ (Leb.) a particular salad (Maan Z. Madina, Arabic-English Dictionary of the Modern Literary Language, 1973, s.v. تبل‎) (added 21:08 UTC)

Do you have reliable sources showing anything else? --Macrakis (talk) 18:49, 20 July 2008 (UTC)