Rediscovering the Vegan Roots of Levantine Cuisine

The Levant is the eastern edge of the Mediterranean: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, and in wider definitions parts of Iraq, the Hatay region of Turkey, and Cyprus. It shares a language, a history and, above all, a kitchen.

For most of that history, meat was rare. It was expensive, and it was saved for feasts, weddings and holy days. Daily food was grain, lentils, beans, vegetables, olive oil and whatever greens could be picked from the hillside. That is not a romantic picture of the past. It is simply what most people could afford.

Somewhere along the way we forgot it. As money, imports and supermarkets spread, meat moved from the feast to the everyday, and the everyday forgot where it came from. Today many people here see veganism as foreign, extreme, or impossible, and vegans in Lebanon know the jokes by heart. Ask a restaurant for something vegan and you are often handed a plate of lettuce, in a cuisine that has been cooking without meat for centuries.

Mujaddara, foul, hummus, falafel, fattoush, loubieh bi zeit: none of these was invented for vegans. They are what this region has always eaten. Veganism here is not an import. It is a return.

Fasting: two traditions, one table

Much of this food survived because of fasting, and both of the region’s great faiths fast.

The Eastern churches (Orthodox, Syriac, Armenian and Coptic, and traditionally the Maronites) keep long fasts: Lent, the fast before Christmas, and in many families every Wednesday and Friday. On those days meat, dairy and eggs leave the table, and often fish too¹. For weeks of every year, a large part of this region eats vegan without calling it that, and its kitchens built a whole repertoire to do it well.

The Ramadan fast grew from the same impulse: to humble the body and to know, for a month, the hunger of those who have little. The Prophet (PBUH) broke his fast with a few fresh dates, or dried dates, or if there were none, a few sips of water². His wife Aisha remembered months in his household when no cooking fire was lit and they lived on dates and water, with meat only when someone sent it as a gift³. The heavy, meat-centred iftar table of today is a modern habit, not the tradition. Even now, a Lebanese iftar still opens with dates, lentil soup and fattoush.

Christian and Muslim, the fasting kitchens of the Levant overlap almost completely, because they grew from the same land, the same markets and the same poverty. Together they left us one of the richest plant-based cuisines in the world, long before anyone used the word vegan.

A Levantine vegan table

Mezze and salads: hummus, hummus balila, msabbaha, baba ghanouj, muhammara, tabbouleh, fattoush, makdous, rocca salad, thyme salad, cabbage salad, hindbeh bi zeit (dandelion greens with fried onion).

Grains and legumes: mujaddara, mjaddara safra (yellow lentil stew), foul mdammas, foul akhdar bi zeit (fresh broad beans in olive oil), falafel, freekeh, burghul bi banadoura, vegetable moghrabieh, rice with pine nuts.

Kibbeh without meat: kibbet adas (lentil), kibbet laqtine (pumpkin), kibbet batata (potato), kibbet banadoura (tomato).

Stuffed and slow-cooked: warak enab bi zeit (vine leaves), kousa and batinjan mahshi (courgettes and aubergines stuffed with rice), mahshi selek (chard), stuffed peppers, maghmour, maqloubeh with vegetables only, bamia and bazella stews without meat, yakhnet batata, ghallaba.

Soups: shorbet adas (lentil soup), adas bi hamod (lentils with chard and lemon), rishta (lentils and noodles), freekeh soup, kibbet raheb (monk’s soup).

Baked: manakish zaatar, fatayer bi sabanekh (spinach pies), vegan borek.

Sweet: sfouf, dates, dried fruit and nuts.

This is not a special diet. It is our grandmothers’ kitchen. We are just cooking from it again.