douma recipe featured in beirut restaurant!

a recipe from douma my family village is featured on the website of a beirut restaurant, semsom...it's a fun layout

with a recipe of a lebanese mountain version of gnocchi, maakroun, or macaroni!! in writing this, the history of this word begins to intrigue me—did the arabs get it from the italians or vice versa. so after only a few minutes of internet research, i find this from noted food historian and writer clifford wright, excerpted from an article which you can read in its entirety by clicking on the link:

The origin of macaroni lies not with the Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, or Chinese, but apparently with the Arabs.

so we can add this to the long list of arab inventions, which food-wise includes the following words with at least arabic and persian origins: sugar, coffee, alcohol, artichoke, alfalfa, apricot, candy, caraway, jasmine, lemon, orange, safflower, saffron, spinach, sumac, syrup, sherbet, sorbet, soda, tahini, tarragon, and tuna. and of course the ice cream cone is purported to have been invented by an arab-american, as described by ideafinder.com:

Syrian immigrant Ernest Hamwi rolled up some of his “zalabia” (a waffle-like pastry) from his pastry cart into cones and gave them to Arnold Fornachou, who had run out of paper dishes to serve his ice cream. Word spread quickly though the Fair and many other vendors began selling ice cream in waffle cones. These edible ice cream cones became so popular that everyone wanted to take credit for there invention and many did.

the lebanese restaurant semsom is located in beirut and is franchising out into the wider world! here are the current locations:

Lebanon

Sassine plaza, Ashrafieh, Lebanon
Tel: +961 (0)1 - 20 04 32
+961 (0)3 - 46 66 46

CityMall, Seaside, Level 1, Dora, Lebanon
Tel: +961 (0)1 - 87 37 25
+961 (0)3 20 26 29

Le Mall, Sin El-Fil, 1st Floor

KSA
Bin Suaiman Center,Prince Sultan Road
Jeddah, KSA

Qatar
Opening soon!

here's your chance to open a lebanese restaurant, with a great philosophy of combining lebanese traditional with lebanese modern cuisine!

semsom also had a recipe competition open until january 31, 2011 for your best lebanese recipe!

do you, my beloved readers, think i should submit one from alice's kitchen?

if so, let me hear from you and which one do you suggest?!

also, please let me know how you like this diversion with words from my more typical blog entries!

with love and holiday blessings,

linda