page_title: Palestinian cuisine
section_title: Bread meals
hierarchical_section_title: Palestinian cuisine / Types of meals / Bread meals
caption_attribution_description: English: Pita at the souq on Khaled ibn al-Waleed street, in the old city of Nablus, West Bank
context_page_description: Palestinian cuisine consists of foods from or commonly eaten by Palestinians—which includes those living in Israel, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, refugee camps in nearby countries as well as by the Palestinian diaspora. The cuisine is a diffusion of the cultures of civilizations that settled in the region of Palestine, particularly during and after the Islamic era beginning with the Arab Ummayad conquest, then the eventual Persian-influenced Abbasids and ending with the strong influences of Turkish cuisine, resulting from the coming of the Ottoman Turks. It is similar to other Levantine cuisines, including Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian.
  Cooking styles vary by region and each type of cooking style and the ingredients used are generally based on the climate and location of the particular region and on traditions. Rice and variations of kibbee are common in the Galilee. The West Bank engages primarily in heavier meals involving the use of taboon bread, rice and meat and coastal plain inhabitants frequent fish, other seafood, and lentils. The Gaza cuisine is a variation of the Levant cuisine, but is more diverse in seafood and spices.
context_section_description: Palestinians bake a variety of different kinds of breads: they include khubz, pita and markook and taboon. Khubz is an everyday bread and is very similar to pita. It often takes the place of utensils; It is torn into bite size pieces and used to scoop various dips such as hummus or ful. Markook bread is a paper-thin unleavened bread and when unfolded it is almost transparent. Taboon receives its name from the ovens used to bake them.
  Musakhan is a widely popular Palestinian dish composed of roasted chicken, with fried onions, sumac, allspice, safron and pine nuts atop one or more
  taboons. The dish is usually eaten with the hands and served with cut lemon on the side. In April 2010, Palestinians were entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for largest Musakhan dish.
  Palestinian cuisine also includes many small pizza-like foods, including Manakish, sfiha, fatayer,sambusac and ikras. Sfiha is a baked miniature flatbread, topped with lamb and cooked red peppers or tomatoes. Manakish is a baked flat bread, usually topped with za'atar and olive oil. Sfiha are meat patties decorated with spices and peppers. Sambusac and fatayer are baked or sometimes fried doughs stuffed with minced meat and cooked onions or snobar (pine nuts). Fatayer is usually folded into triangles and unlike sambusac, it could be filled with arabic cheese or za'atar. Ikras is similar to sambusac and fatayer, by using dough stuffed with either meat or spinach, however they are not fried (like sambusac), and are usually served as a meal rather than meal addition or side dish.
  Sandwiches usually using markook or khubz, such as Shawarma and Falafel are also common bread meals. Shawarma can be served as a sandwich or meal with shaved meat and bread. Shawarma can be chicken or beef, and is adorned with a variety of garnishes. These can include pickles, hummus, or a garlic yogurt mix. Falafel, fried chickpeas, parsley and onion are fried into small patties and are adorned with similar toppings as shawarma.
caption: Pita
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