Tracing how hummus was invented and went global
hummus in Grand Cheese Bazaar, the pioneering food shop started by Karen Anand in Mumbai in 1990. The cheese was nice, but what was great was this creamy, tangy, deeply tasty mash of chickpeas, garlic, olive oil and thick tahina sesame paste. It worked like a sauce, but was substantial like a spread and less rich-tasting than cheese or paté, so you could eat more. With some good bread or rotis, it made for a full meal.
All I knew was that it was Middle Eastern, so when I went to spend a few weeks in Egypt, I looked forward to eating a lot more of it. But for Egyptians, the pulses that mattered most was ful, slow-cooked fava beans. Chickpeas (which is literally what hummus means) weren’t as popular, either whole or mashed.
I searched in supermarkets, but found only some sad tasting, canned hummus. I was told that most people made it at home, or ordered it in restaurants as part of the starters called mezze.
In Lilia Zaouali study Medieval Cuisine in the Islamic World, she notes a recipe for mashed chickpeas mixed with vinegar, preserved lemons, cinnamon, pepper and ginger dating back to a 13th century Egyptian treatise. This also seems to be around the time when tahina gets mentioned by itself — before this, sesame seeds mainly seemed to have been crushed into oil, leaving a drier residue.
Some culinary genius realised that adding more oil and water would give a creamy paste, which was a valuable ingredient in itself. And then it was mixed with chick pea paste to give what is still correctly called hummus bi
