Iraqi cuisine

Iraqi cuisine is a Middle Eastern cuisine that has its origins in the ancient Near East culture of the fertile crescent. Tablets found in ancient ruins in Iraq show recipes prepared in the temples during religious festivals—the first cookbooks in the world. Ancient Iraq's cultural sophistication extended to the culinary arts.
The Iraqi kitchen reached its zenith in the Islamic Golden Age when Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 AD).
In Northern Iraq pomegranate is added to dolma. In Southern Iraq, fish is a staple. The center of the country is known for its rice dishes and sweets.
In terms of agriculture, Iraq harks back to ancient Mesopotamia, growing wheat and crops requiring winter chill such as apples and stone fruits. Lower Mesopotamia grows rice and barley, citrus fruits, and is responsible for Iraq's position as one of the world's largest producer of dates.
Pork consumption is forbidden to Muslims in Iraq, in accordance with Sharia, the Islamic law.
Archaeologists have found evidence from excavations at Jarmo, in northeastern Iraq, that pistachio nuts were a common food as early as 6750 BC. Among the ancient texts discovered in Mesopotamia is a Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual dictionary, recorded in cuneiform script on 24 stone tablets about 1900 BC. It lists terms in the two ancient Iraqi languages for over 800 different items of food and drink. Included are 20 different kinds of cheese, over 100 varieties of soup and 300 types of bread, each with different ingredients, filling, shape or size.
The world's oldest recipes are found in Mesopotamia of modern-day ancient Iraq, written in cuneiform tablets. One of three excavated cuneiform clay tablets written in 1700 BC in Babylon, 50 miles south of present-day Baghdad, contains 24 recipes for stew cooked with meat and vegetables, enhanced and seasoned with leeks, onion, garlic, and spices and herbs like cassia, cumin, coriander, mint, and dill. Stew has remained a mainstay in the cuisine. Extant medieval Iraqi recipes and modern Iraqi cuisine attest to this.
Some characteristic ingredients of Iraqi cuisine include:
Other Iraqi culinary essentials include olive oil, sesame oil, tamarind, vermicelli, tahini, honey, date syrup, yogurt and rose water.
Lamb is the favorite meat, but chicken, beef, goat and fish are also eaten. Most dishes are served with rice—usually timman anbar, a yellowish, very aromatic, long-grain rice grown in the Middle Euphrates region.
Bulghur wheat is used in many dishes, having been a staple in the country since the days of the ancient Assyrians. Flatbread is a staple that is served with a variety of dips, cheeses, olives, and jams, at every meal.
Meals begin with appetizers and salads, known as mezza. Mezza is a selection of appetizers or small dishes often served with a beverage, like anise-flavored liqueurs such as arak, ouzo, rakı, sambuca, pastis, or various wines, similar to the tapas of Spain, or finger food.
Mezza may include:
Various stews served over rice form a major part of Iraqi cuisine.
Long-grain rice is a staple in Iraqi cuisine. Iraqi rice cooking is a multistep process intended to produce just-tender, fluffy grains. A prominent aspect of Iraqi rice cooking is the hikakeh, a crisp bottom crust. Before serving, the hikakeh is broken into pieces so that everyone is provided with some along with the fluffy rice.
In Iraqi Arabic, rice is called temmen, which is an assimilation of English "ten men" (a brand of Indian basmati rice). According to the myth, the word originated after World War I when Iraqi farmers declined to provide the British with rice to feed their soldiers in Basra. Thereafter, the British imported "Ten Men" instead. As such, when Iraqi porters used to hear British soldiers requesting them to carry the pouches of "Ten Men", they thought it meant rice in English. The word temmen has since entered the Iraqi vocabulary, and today, Iraqis still use that word for rice.
The earliest known recipe for cake comes from ancient Mesopotamia. Believed to be primarily for consumption at the palace or temple, the cake was made from fat, white cheese, dates and raisins. Another recipe dating to the reign of Hammurabi (1792 BCE–1750 BCE) includes similar basic ingredients with the addition of grape syrup, figs and apples.
The traditional Iraqi kleicha cookies are believed to have their roots in Mesopotamian qullupu—date filled pastries baked in a wood-fired oven called tannour. In modern times, other types of cookies (biskit) and cakes (ka'ak) are made at home, usually flavored with cardamom or rose water. Some variations include the disc-shaped khfefiyyat, half-moon shaped kleichat joz made with nuts, and date-filled kleichat tamur.
Cookbooks dating to the Abbasid Caliphate between the 10th and 13th centuries include recipes for hundreds of desserts. The tradition continues into the modern day, but the rich, syrupy desserts like baklava are usually prepared for special occasions or religious celebrations, as most daily meals are usually followed by a simple course of seasonal fruit, especially dates, figs, cantaloupes, nectarines, apricots, pomegranates, peaches, mulberries, grapes or watermelons.
Though not as recognizable as baklava, the fried pastry called lauzeenaj, flavored with mastic and rose water, was a specialty in imperial Baghdad.
Rosette-shaped fritters called zalabia are a local specialty, believed to take their name from Ziryab, a well-known Iraqi musician in the Caliphate of Cordoba.
Baklava and zalabia are typical offerings during the Eid al-Fitr celebrations that follow Ramadan. Halqoum (commonly known as Turkish delight) are traditionally given as gifts during the holiday.
Others include:
On February 20, 2023, a law was published banning the import, production and sale of all types of alcoholic beverages, punishable by fines of up to IQD 25 million. There is currently no further information available regarding the enforcement of the law, which is currently being litigated.