Talk:Middle Eastern cuisine

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Karla EB.

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comment
"Kosher" as a category is completely orthogonal to "Middle Eastern". Kosher (like Halal or Vegan or Christian-fasting) is a cultural/religious category, not a regional one. There is Kosher Polish, Kosher Sephardic, Kosher Indian, etc. So the 'Kosher' category doesn't belong here. Israeli cooking, on the other hand, probably does.--Macrakis 04:32, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

''Please explain to me (no Native English speaker) what "Middle Eastern" means. The Wikipedia entry on "Middle East" say it is the region from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. If so, what does Ethiopic or Moroccan cooking have to do with Middle-Eastern cuisine?''

The Middle East is North Africa (Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt) and Southwest Asia (Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait). Ethiopia does not belong in this category, it is African cuisine. --S.M. 9 July 2005 05:54 (UTC)
 * According to my understanding, the Middle East as a geographical term does not include Morocco and probably neither Algeria nor Tunisia. Whether the cooking style resembles that of the Middle East is a completely different question. The article is not very precise in this respect.--193.196.193.21 16:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The Middle East does NOT Include Most of Arab North Africa... it simply Includes the Arabian Peninsula (Qatar, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait), Arab Mashriq (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq), Turkey, Iran, Israel, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, cyprus is sometimes included due to geographical reason, but the terminology is strictly political tho..

Arab League User (talk) 02:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Middle East
Speaking Arabic does not make something Middle Eastern. Somalia is in sub-saharan African and any cultural similaries with the Middle East has no bearing on Geography. Only the Sinai part of Egypt is in the Middle East. North African cuisine is North African cuisine, not Middle Eastern cuisine. Arab cuisine stretches from Mauritania to Oman. This Area is does not constitute the Middle East, it constitutes the Arab World. It don't give a damn about the Bush administration's definition of things nor Pan-Arab pseudo-geography. If you look at a map you can clearly see the Middle East demarcated from Europe, Asia and Africa by the Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Sea, Iranian Plateau, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Sinai Peninsula, Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea. It is almost an island and has more claim to being a seperate continent than Europe or the Indian subcontinent. The Middle East is from the Greek islands in the Aegean to central Iran and from Georgia to the Sinai to Yemen. This is the Middle East 90.193.39.114 (talk) 04:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Middle Eastern Cuisine
This page should not have been unilaterally moved from Middle Eastern Cuisine. English speakers who want to find this cuisine will be looking for "Middle Eastern", not "West Asian". They don't know what "West Asian cuisine" is. Look at the cookbooks on the topic--they are uniformly "Middle Eastern", not "West Asian". Wikipedia should reflect what English speakers actually use, not what one editor thinks they should use. (Taivo (talk) 15:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC))

already moved by Taivo.

West Asian cuisine → Middle Eastern cuisine — - This page had existed for a long time as "Middle Eastern cuisine". For English speakers, this is a clear and explanatory term. Nearly all English-language cookbooks refer to this as "Middle Eastern cuisine". "West Asian" is a political construct and not an actual term used by the majority of English speakers. This page was unilaterally moved without discussion. --Taivo (talk) 15:18, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Izzedine, if you want to move this again, then you need to go through the process of requesting a move at WP:MOVE. If, after discussion, a consensus of editors agree with you, then it can be moved to West Asian cuisine. But since there is (at least) one objection, you need to build consensus around the move. (Taivo (talk) 15:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC))


 * Just to demonstrate my point, I did a search at Amazon (since cookbooks are going to be the number measure for common English usage in this topic) for "Middle Eastern cuisine". It yielded this listing.  The whole first page of results contains cookbooks relevant to food of the Middle East.  I did a search for "West Asian cuisine" and got this list, the first page of which includes mostly east asian cookbooks along with a couple items on western North American cooking and a West African cookbook.  The only relevant cookbook to West Asia on that list was a cookbook on recipes from the Caucasus.  That should put the issue of what to call this article to rest.  "Middle Eastern" is the name that users will be looking for when they go to Amazon, so "Middle Eastern" is the name that we need to be using here to reflect common English usage.  (Taivo (talk) 20:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC))

Hyphen
Why is this "Middle Eastern cuisine" and not "Middle-Eastern cuisine"? I'm going to be bold and change it. -Ich (talk) 01:46, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I moved it back. If you do a few searches on Google and Google Books, you will find that the hyphenated form is essentially non-existent. --Macrakis (talk) 00:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You are absolutely and totally in error. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 14:50, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Quality
This article needs major work. What does "The cuisine of the region is diverse while having a degree of homogeneity." mean? Why are "pitas" [sic] listed as an ingredient? Why isn't wheat listed in the "commonly used ingredients"? Kibbeh is specifically a Levantine cuisine dish, not pan-ME. Similarly, the statement about tahini (Many Middle-Eastern dishes are made with a paste called tahini) is misleading -- tahini is mostly a Levantine thing, not popular in Egypt, Turkey, Arabia, etc. The statement "Religion has also changed the cuisine as neither Jews nor Muslims eat pork, making lamb the primary meat." is bizarre, for one thing because it doesn't mention or explain that beef is not widely used. There is the naive and silly statement that "Since the Qur'an forbids alcohol consumption, the region isn't noted much for its wine", forgetting that there is a significant number of Christians in Lebanon and Syria; and then the next section mentions arak, as though it weren't alcoholic.

Terrible article. Needs lots of work. Also needs decent sources. Globalgourmet and about.com are not Reliable Sources. --Macrakis (talk) 00:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The Left Hand
Can anyone point to an article that points to why the tradition of not eating with the left hand has stuck around? I can't imagine the practice of cleaning yourself after the bathroom still is around; if it is, why? I read that there are preferences from Profects that prefer the right hand, but does that condemn the left? I'd like to read the article about the McDonald's campaign that lost sales for big macs due to the image of Ronald McDonald holding the sandwich with both hands. Thanks. Complete turing (talk) 00:20, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Fruit?
While specific fruits are mentioned in various places there is no section on fruit as there is for meat, cereal, vegetables, etc.,and there is little mention of fruit in the "Vegetables" section. Should there be a "Fruit" section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.82.169.38 (talk) 13:30, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

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Kurdish Cuisine
Kurdish cuisine is an important ethnic food, and shouldn't be removed/replaced by Jordanian cuisine. this seems to be a contentious edit, and does a disservice to kurdish cuisine.

Saintstephen000 (talk)


 * Please provide diffs and explain precisely what edits you think are inappropriate. You're aware, correct, that Kurdish cuisine is an article? -  Julietdeltalima   (talk)  19:59, 21 September 2022 (UTC)


 * my apologies. there was a misunderstanding with an editor regarding whether or not kurdish should be included.

thank you Saintstephen000 (talk)

Italics
Hello,

Is there any particular reason many of the dish names in the lead and randomly throughout the article are italicized? The only directions I could find on the Wikipedia use of italics is from the MoS: "Italics should not be used for foreign-language text in non-Latin scripts, such as Chinese characters and Cyrillic script, or for proper names, to which the convention of italicizing non-English words and phrases does not apply; thus, a title of a short non-English work simply receives quotation marks."

Unless anyone knows the reason, I am going to remove the italics from the food titles.

Best, Apathyash (talk) 16:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)