I wanted to create a blog that would be the best resource on the internet for recipes with zaatar. I also wanted it to appeal to serious foodies as well as people who want to eat good food but aren’t interested in culinary arts or nutrition.
I started collecting recipes and translating them, and even learned how to make some of them myself. The blog was going to be a place where people could learn about zaatar and about cooking, and enjoy the process too. In the end I had enough material for a zaatar cookbook, which is being published next spring by Interlink books.
But it was all really just an excuse for me to be around zaatar all day, every day. It’s a fantastic herb, with long history and many varieties, and I wanted to get to know all its facets. I looked forward to coming home from work, not because I had a big story waiting there for me, but because I knew I would get to play with zaatar right away.
__The first time we met, about two years ago now, was at a dinner in Amman hosted by the Jordanian Culinary Society. The dinner featured dishes from all over Jordan: from Irbid, from Jerash and from A
Another reason to eat zaatar is that it is delicious. I’ve said before that what makes food good is not just the nutrients but the taste and the experience. And nothing brings people together more than food.
Consider the Italian custom of family meals, which has been found to be one of the best predictors of happiness among older people. The same goes for other cultures and cuisines, such as Japanese home-cooked meals, or Jewish Shabbat dinners, or Indian thalis, or Iranian tea-time gatherings, or Moroccan mealtimes in general.
The simple act of eating meals together is probably not enough by itself. It’s just an opportunity for conversation, which when taken advantage of can do wonders for your relationships. By itself, a meal will only help if you actually talk to each other and listen to each other. Eating together won’t save a marriage on its own; it just makes it easier to save a marriage with some effort.
But eating together is a great thing in itself. It’s one of those things that makes life worth living, even if you do nothing else at all.
Zaatar is a spice mix made of wild thyme, oregano, sesame seeds, and salt. It is eaten in the Levant (in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel) and in North Africa (Egypt and Morocco).
Tahina is the sesame paste that goes with it. You can make it from scratch by toasting sesame seeds and then grinding them with some water and adding salt. Or you can buy it from any Lebanese restaurant or supermarket.
Lately zaatar has been popular in the US among foodies. It is used as a substitute for pizza; you can buy zaatar bread, zaatar crackers, zaatar hummus etc.
My mother was born in Egypt; my father came from Salamiyah in Syria. I have no idea who first ate zaatar or when. But I am sure we are using it in our family since at least the time of my grandfathers (my dad’s and my mom’s). My grandfathers were born around 1880 so they must have grown up eating this stuff. They were also born in an area where zaatar was a common spice used both in cooking and eating on its own.
My parents told me over and over
Zaatar is a Middle Eastern herb that has been used for thousands of years to flavor food. It can be made into a paste that is spread on bread or used in other recipes. It is also popular as a garnish on various dishes.
Taste:Zaatar has a pungent licorice taste, but it is not overpowering. My husband, who is not fond of licorice, describes the taste as “very strong.” I find it appealing and refreshing. Some people describe the taste as salty; others say it’s similar to oregano or thyme.
Taste, cont.:I have tried a number of different recipes using zaatar (see below). Most of them have a pleasant combination of flavors – spicy, slightly sweet and savory. I find that it goes well with fish or grilled chicken, or in stews or other vegetable dishes. I even tried sprinkling zaatar on my popcorn!
Flavor:The main ingredients in zaatar are sesame seeds and dried sumac berries (also known as Smyrna berries). The sumac adds its own distinctive tangy flavor to the herb. I’ve also seen recipes with salt added – usually about 3 tablespoons per cup of za
Zaatar is an Arabic word. It translates to mean thyme. However the herb that the word zaatar refers to is not thyme, but rather a spice mixture that has a different taste than thyme and contains oregano, marjoram, sumac and sesame seeds as well as olive oil and salt. You can sprinkle it on bread or serve it with grilled meats or fish.
Tasty stuff. And you can grow it yourself!
It is all a matter of perspective. You can look at it as “just another Mediterranean salad” or you can see it as a delivery mechanism for enough free-radical scavenging activity to make you feel ten years younger.
This kale salad is not just another Mediterranean salad, and zaatar is not just another herb, but that does not mean I’m making a big deal about them. It’s your body, so you decide what to make a big deal about.
There are some new things in this salad, like raw kale and pomegranate seeds, but there are also plenty of things that have been around for millennia: olive oil, lemon juice, salt, black pepper, and zaatar.
We often talk about the benefits of olive oil as if it were some kind of magic potion. People who eat olive oil instead of butter don’t exactly live longer; they just die more slowly. But still, if people who eat butter get heart disease at age 70 and people who eat olive oil get it at age 80, that’s still an improvement. Olive oil is the vegetable equivalent of red wine (another substance whose benefits are frequently overstated). It has anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants that help reduce damage from free radicals in the body (
When the first settlers in America made a pie from scratch, they started with dough and ended with a pie. When the first settlers in the Middle East made a pie, they started with dough and ended with a salad.
After a couple of thousand years of being conquered by various empires, it’s no wonder that Arabs are better at making salads than pies. But why do we think of them as salads? It’s because that’s what we call them when we translate them into English.
There is no standard word for “soups” or “salads” in Arabic; there are only words for types of soups and salads. The word for what we call a “soup” is the same as the word for what we call a “stew.” And while there is an Arabic word that means something like what we would call “vegetables,” it refers to raw vegetables only when they are uncooked, and cooked vegetables if they are going to be served separately from the main dish. In other words, salad.
