By examining the food history, culture, and politics of the modern Levant, the authors reveal a culinary past that is, as one contributor puts it, “simultaneously hidden and deliciously obvious.” I spoke with Anny Gaul, an assistant professor of Arabic studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and one of the editors of the book, and Antonio Tahhan, a food writer, researcher, and contributor to it.
—Alexia Underwood
AU: There’s been much debate over whom food “belongs to,” especially a food like hummus. You write that it’s a question of privilege. How so?
AG: Privilege and power. Sometimes what’s lost in the conversations about ownership or appropriation are these questions of concrete, tangible forms of power. Instead of asking who owns something, can we shift the question to “Who…
