Falafel
Falafel (in German feminine or neutral; Arabic فلافل, DMG falāfil , ) are deep-fried balls made from pureed beans or chickpeas , herbs and spices , which are especially popular as a snack . The dish comes from Arabic cuisine .
distribution
The place and time of the creation of the court are not known, but it is likely to be a very old court. Some historians believe that it originated in Egypt , where it is also called Ta'amia , and may have been created by the Christian Copts as a meatless dish for Lent. Others suspect its origin, however, more in Lebanon or in Palestine . Falafel belongs to all cuisines of the Middle East and North Africa .
In Israel , too , falafel is considered a national dish and is prepared by all residents of Israel, regardless of ethnicity, origin or religion. In the Sephardic- Arabic-Jewish culture of the Middle East, falafel had a permanent place as part of the local cooking tradition long before the state of Israel was founded.
In Germany, falafel has been offered since the early 1980s, mostly at food stalls with an Arabic style, and increasingly also at Turkish as an alternative to doner kebab .
preparation
To prepare it, beans or chickpeas are first soaked and turned through the meat grinder . Then parsley , coriander , garlic and spring onions are finely chopped and added as well as some baking powder and as spices salt , pepper and cumin . Depending on the recipe, dill , cayenne pepper or bulgur can be added. Then all ingredients are turned through the meat grinder again and kneaded into a dough. After a rest period, walnut-sized balls are formed from the dough, for which there is a special falafel spoon or falafel scoop, and deep-fried until golden brown.
Falafel is usually served with tahini (sesame sauce) or hummus (chickpea sauce) and various pickled or fried vegetables and pita , a thin flatbread . As a snack “on the hand”, falafel with vegetables or salad is offered in an unfolded flatbread or as a wrap , and sumac is often added as a spice .
A specific Berlin invention are falafel with mango sauce. In Iraq and partly in Israel so-called amba sauce is used. This contains mango, but is rather acidic. In Berlin, some Iraqi snack bars introduced a variant with sweet mango juice , which spread. Likewise, the German variants with a variety of sauces and salads in a kebab bread in no way correspond to the economical “Arabic” version of the original poor people's meal, in which falafel balls are only served with a little sesame sauce.
literature
- Yael Raviv: Falafel: A National Icon . In: Gastronomica . tape 3 , no. 3 , 2003, ISSN 1529-3262 , p. 20-25 , doi : 10.1525 / gfc.2003.3.3.20 .
Web links
- Alexandra Nocke: Cuisine . In: The place of the Mediterranean in modern Israeli identity . Brill, Leiden 2009. pp. 120-135 (English) ISBN 90-04-17324-2
- Yael Raviv: National Identity on a Plate . In: Palestine-Israel Journal, Vol. 8 No 4, 2001 and Vol. 9 No 1, 2002 (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Duden | Falafel | Spelling, meaning, definition, origin. Retrieved June 26, 2019 .
- ^ Yael Raviv: Falafel: A National Icon . In: Gastronomica, Summer 2003, Vol. 3, No. 3, p. 20 (English). 1st page online . Retrieved January 28, 2011
- ^ Birgit Agada, Adolf Schuster: Algeria . Trescher Verlag, Berlin 2010 ISBN 3-89794-155-4 , p. 108 online in extracts . Retrieved January 28, 2011
- ^ Algeria: Birgit Agada, Adolf Schuster, culture and nature between the Mediterranean and the Sahara
- ↑ Falafel Recipe Collection Accessed: May 21, 2013
- ↑ taz.de: Falafel is a poor people's food interview with the cultural geographer Miriam Stock about falafel and gentrification, January 2014