Hummusgirl's Blog

Chickpeas are good for fiber, protein, energy, and a variety of other things that our other big starches in this world are not about.  If we only incorprated them into the big sellers at restaurants maybe we’d be skinnier.  Because weird things are already offered in the Middle East and we already copy their cooking, so we should start offering their food in McDonald’s.  Maybe if we blended them into french fries or beef burgers or even made falafel or hummus a menu item, we’d gradually cut down on the meat we use, and therefore, use less corn.

Could there be such a thing as chickpea chips?  There is falafel after all which is fried, so perhaps there could be a consolation in which we use gram flour or use some chemistry to get those chickpea nutrients into some junk food.  Because chickpeas are associated with vegetarianism maybe this appeal could strengthen the ties with other beans, which are just not as versatile as garbanzos.  You don’t put other beans on salads or at least they’re not offered at salad bars.

Chickpeas are accepted as one of the essentials to put on foods.  I’m sure the other beans are just as qualified, but el chickpea is different.  There’s something to be said for substitution and one could easily find another thing besides chickpeas to think about, but that’s not the point.  The point is that because these basic staples have been around so long, we should start respecting them all a little more.  Oh, maybe it’s not respect, but we take them for granted and with food quality and quantity, maybe we should think of these foods with a little more heart and soul and less about making them into products that have no business being in a grocery store.

I remember making this sweet dessert when I was a teenager at my church.  The sheets of pastry took forever to get together and assemble. 

I also recall calling balaclavas baklavas when I worked for the Appalachian Mountain Club.  See, balaklavas are ski masks that cover your face, except for your eyes, mouth, and nose.

The bad part of baklava, is that they don’t have chocolate.  In fact, I wonder if any Mediterranean desserts have chocolate?  Maybe they don’t believe in it or don’t have access to it.

So these Middle Easterners turn to honey nut pastry to satiate their bellies.  What if they sold baklava next to hummus?  Maybe if it had chickpeas in it it would sell better than it does.  There are chickpea desserts in the Phillippines called halo-halo.  Baklava has to be the most popular Middle Eastern dessert.  So why isn’t it marketed better here?  There’s even Halva, a chickpea sweet dish in Bangladesh.  What’s so scary about this dish that it’s not sold in diners or fast food restaurants or as a packaged snack?

I know baklava is not as healthy as some of our power bars, but are power bars and candy bars really all that healthy?  Baklava is just honey, pastry, and nuts.  It doesn’t give you any energy, but neither does pure sugar.  But baklava can be messy and those store bought candies are too easy and no fuss to shove into your mouth.

Ok, last thought.  I attempted to make baklava just now.  I put it in the oven and it looks pretty tasty.  The main problem was that it looked too liquidy because the orange blossom water I thought was supposed to be syrupy, is not.  I’ve never cooked with phyllo sheets before either, but I guess it’ll turn out ok.  I wonder how many middle Eastern mothers or fathers cook baklava.

Why are there so many different brands of hummus out there?  They seem to vary depending on where you live.  Hummus is so simple.  It’s just chickpeas, tahini, garlic, olive oil, and spices.  Why is the US marketplace so competitive for hummus?  It must be America that makes so many different brands pop up.  I know, it’s the immigrants who brought it over, but maybe they’re so proud of their heritage, they push their hummus that much further. 

But it can’t all be immigrants who own the hummus companies.  I know every food here has competition.  Just look at pizza for example.  There’s so many different frozen brands and then we have pizza restaurants.

I know we have a lot of Middle Eastern restaurants, but it’s definitely not as high as Chinese, Italian, or even Japanese.  So why has hummus taken over our display cases and why are there no hummus monopolies?

I have to ask.  Which brand is most similar to Middle Eastern hummus?  Is authentic hummus too good for us and so we “settle” for the store brand? Do we like it warm or cold better?  With chips or pita or veggies? Just think, no other bean is as commercialized as the garbanzo, except, of course, the soybean, which is a vegetarian bean as well.  Maybe someday, lentils or black beans will be competing amongst themselves for the highest bidder, but until that day, we’ll just have to make do with chickpea domination.

What is the price of hummus in the Mediterranean and why is it so expensive here?  It seems that in the Middle East, hummus and Mediterranean foods would be inexpensive because aren’t all poorer countries cheaper than pricey American goods?

Where do they get their chickpeas from?  I have my sources that chickpeas are mostly grown in India, with a staggering 6 million tons from there.  There are even two kinds of chickpeas, Desi and Kabuli.  Desi is dark, and Kabuli is lighter in color.  These cicero beans can be a coffee substitute and as you can see from recipe books, incorporated numerous ways into dinners and snacks. 

Do we take chickpeas as seriously as our friendly neighbors?  It seems like we do because this hummus fad might be here to stay.  I buy my dried chickpeas from an Indian grocery for about ten dollars so it’s much cheaper than buying it from a grocery store for half the price, but a tenth of the product. 

I still don’t understand why the store bought hummus is so expensive!  It’s this little secret that no one wants to talk about.  I tried asking Whole Foods about their prices, but they refused to talk about prices.

Do they have hummus in other countries and price it as heavily as we do?  It must be an American Lebanese immigrant thing that has just been capitalized on because we Americans are gullible for new product since our culinary tastes are all over the map.

What new food will take over the fad land next in stores?  Will lentils ever make it big?  The American grocery store is a land that is ever evolving and changing and maybe someday our hummus authenticity will match up to our feuding neightbors, but in the meantime I’ll still worship my friendly Oasis.

I don’t even really like hummus sometimes.  I just make it because it’s cheap and healthy and tastes moderately ok.  But it’s a pureed food.  Only old people eat pureed foods.  I know that because I worked at a retirement community where we served mushy meats  and vegetables to people who don’t have teeth or the energy to eat “real” foods.  And they eat it!  They like the mushy food.  Maybe I’m turning into an elderly person.  It’s not too bad being old besides being attracted to mushy food.  I wonder if older people like hummus more than younger people. 

But I know that can’t be true because little kids eat pureed foods as well. I keep hearing about Moms who feed their kids hummus and they LOVE it! I bet you could make anything into a pureed food.  I just looked up some pureed food recipes and found spaghetti and meatballs and chicken noodle soup- all as a pureed food!

And of course we have milkshakes and smoothies- those we just take for granted because they’re presumably healthy and taste good too. 

But back to the question if hummus is cool to younger people.  I think it must be cool to them because I hear about these Middle Eastern restaurants that are doing awesome business.  When I did my survey asking people what their favorite dip was, hummus did come up, but I think there is some competition from Mexican dips like guacamole and layer dips.

So maybe they’ll start serving hummus in nursing homes soon. Hey, you never know!

What is your favorite type of hummus?  Well I did a taste test a year ago of the hummus from Whole Foods.  The brands included Asmar, Whole Foods, Bobbi’s, and my own.  I found out that my coworkers thought that Asmar was too bland and boring, Whole Foods was also bland, and Bobbi’s and my own were practically a tie for best.  They liked my spicy kick and the roasted red pepper flavor of Bobbi’s. 

But how would these compare to Middle Eastern restaurants’ hummus?  See, a whole different frame of mind exists when you visit restaurants.  You expect more because you’re probably paying more.

And a friend said her daughter likes American brand hummus better than the authentic kind.  It’s weird how there’s so many different brands of hummus around this country, yet each is specified to its own region.

I know salsas are very different according to each region as well and as well as Chinese food.  Chinese and Italian food are different because there’s not really many chains for these, especially not for Chinese food.  Did you know there are more Chinese restaurants than McDonald’s in this country?  That says something about the nation’s state of food if you ask me.

I was wrong about sticking just with hummus!  Turns out, chickpea flour is the extreme of what I could do with my beloved garbanzos.  There’s bread, crackers, cookies, currys, you name it, that chickpea flour (also called gram flour) can be used in.  You can even make hummus out of it! Now that’s what I call an adventure!  Maybe today, I’ll cook lots of chickpea dishes and have people over to experience el chickpea in its highest art form: versatility.

So I made potato and chickpea flour dumplings and they didn’t look too good. They were, however, fried in peanut oil so they tasted pretty good.  I’ve heard that one can make hummus out of chickpea flour.  This I have to try.  Because this gram flour is just chickpeas so it must be pretty simple to make right?

I must confess, I like junk food just as much as the next person.  I wish I dipped with veggies more often, but like, no LOVE, the taste of carbs.  And there’s so many different kinds of carbs like pretzels, cookies, french fries, corn and potato chips, wheat thins, sun chips, and even fragile “chips” like pringles, corn, and cheese doodles. 

And we even dip fruit, pound cake, different kinds of bread like artisan and pita bread.  I guess if you’re interested in dipping and feel adventurous, go for it!  I think the most versatile dip is fondue for you can dip bread (in cheese), and strawberries, pound cake, and other food in chocolate fondue.

But then I put an ad on facebook about dippers and got responses like donuts, pot stickers (looked it up- actually dumplings), graham crackers (you know, I actually met a descendent of the inventor of graham crackers), and churros and chocolate. 

Which makes me wonder if meats can be dippers.  I know most people prefer sauces on their meat, but we do dip “chicken” nuggets in sauce, and chicken tenders from fast food places as well, so it’s not like this is something new. 

And I do love my hummus as a spread on sandwiches with brie, bacon, avocado, lettuce, and tomato on artisan bread.  But carbs aren’t the be all end all of life, so maybe I should branch out into other modes of cuisine.

I like how wikipedia says that when you mess with someone’s rice and beans you mess with their mind.  I think that way about hummus sometimes.

Anyway, this dish is popular in Latin America, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and probably the United States too.  Simple, yet nutritious, this rice and beans is rich in starch, iron, vitamin B, and protein.

I like that poor people have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  If I wasn’t such a spoiled young American in terms of the variety of food I eat, would I be eating rice and beans or hummus all the time as well?

I made lentils and rice a couple days ago and definitely felt the benefits of nutrients seeping into me.  It’s also accompanied by meat, bread, eggs, or vegetables as well.

A variety of rice and beans dishes are served all over the world, so it’s not exclusive.  However, noting from how important is or was to the Americas, maybe it’s safe to say that not only did this dish get its start in South and Latin America, but maybe if we Americans adopted rice and beans more instead of fast food, we’d not only be healthier, but better people.

I don’t understand why Arabic is such a scary language to us Westerners.  I don’t understand why we have problems with the people who speak it.  I know it must be just blatant ignorance and racism, but that didn’t prevent me from taking an Arabic class four years ago.  I knew nothing about it and I still didn’t even know which countries speak it until now (25 including my favorite, Lebanon). 

The people in my class either were from the Middle East, had a loved one from there, or were studying it for jobs.  I was there because it just seemed like an exotic language to learn and I was open to new experiences.  I only lasted two or three classes but got the book and maybe it was that experience that taught me to not be to be open to new cultures, though I was that way in college to a good degree.

Anyway, now that I’m serious about all things hummus (and then some), I really don’t want to be afraid of Arabic so maybe when I visit the Middle East, I’ll try again and hopefully not cause anybody to question me at the airport or elsewhere like I’ve heard that they do nowadays.  But I must say, Arabic must be easier to learn than English right? I shouldn’t give up! Have any of you wanted to learn a certain language (even English) and been stumped?