Middle Eastern Influences on American Food: Coming to America

Some Middle Eastern dishes—pilaf, for instance—came to America by way of other countries and cuisines. The English had developed a taste for this Persian dish (spelling it “pillaw”) in India, where they learned to wash the rice scrupulously to remove surface starch, boil it until nearly done, and then steam it for up to half an hour so that all the grains fluffed and separated. They brought it to South Carolina when they started rice plantations there. (They also brought a sweet drink called julep, from the Persian Arabic “jullab.”) Pilaf is the origin of the Carolina dish perloo, and what southern cooks call dry rice is also pilaf.