Middle Eastern Influences on American Food

The Middle East is where so many crops, such as wheat, barley, onions, peas, and lentils, were domesticated in ancient times, as well as animals, including sheep and probably cattle, that its influence on America’s European heritage was immense, if hard to trace. It is generally agreed that Egypt gave the world leavened bread, and beer was the everyday beverage of both Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the Middle Ages, the Arabs carried sugar, the techniques for the making of candy and syrups, and probably also the idea of rice pudding from India. They passed on the eggplant from India, too, adding their own technique of salting it before frying (a dish they called badhinjan buran).