Nine Dips, and the Rise of Hummus

If you are a vegetarian or vegan, you are bound to have a hummus recipe already. Over the last decade, hummus has become the goto health food; its share of the market is booming. I remember when supermarkets first started selling hummus. It was beige, quite textural, and not that nice. It used to be hippie food, earnest stuff that you bought in 70s vegetarian restaurants. It was also the brown puddle next to the pink puddle in Greek restaurants.

Since then, it has improved, to the point that the average supermarket sells tons of it. There are shelves dedicated to hummus: plain, organic, lemon and cilantro, jalapeño, red pepper, avocado. Is there anything that hummus doesn’t go with? (Actually there is; I once had a posh meal at a London hotel where they served fish on a bed of hot hummus. Truly horrible.)