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Circassian and Chechen Foodways in the Levant

Community

⚠ A CAUCASIAN CUISINE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, and the reason is a deportation. After the Russian conquest of the Caucasus and the expulsions of 1864, CIRCASSIANS and CHECHENS were settled by the Ottoman state across the Levant — in the Golan and Quneitra and around Damascus in Syria, and above all in JORDAN, where Amman itself was refounded as a Circassian village in 1878 and where Wadi al-Sir, Na’ur, Jerash and Sweileh were Circassian and Chechen settlements. The food is Caucasian and stayed so: SHIPS-PASTE — chicken in a walnut-and-spice sauce with a firm millet or maize paste; HALIVE/halluj, the cheese-filled fried pastry; MATAZ, the steamed dumpling; walnut sauces; maize and millet rather than rice; and a documented preference for poultry and dairy. ⚠ THEY ARE NOT ARABS AND THEIR FOOD IS NOT ARAB FOOD, and filing them as a regional variation of either Syrian or Jordanian cooking is the error this row exists to prevent.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Circassians community documented
  • Chechens community documented

Languages: West Circassian, East Circassian, Kabardian, Chechen, North Levantine Arabic, South Levantine Arabic

What is recorded

  • The Russian conquest of the Caucasus expels Circassians and Chechens; the Ottoman state settles them across the Levant. Amman is refounded as a Circassian village in 1878. documented
  • Circassians and Chechens were settled across the Levant by the Ottoman state following the Russian conquest of the Caucasus and the expulsions of 1864. Amman was refounded as a Circassian village in 1878, with Wadi al-Sir, Na’ur, Jerash and Sweileh among the settlements. Their food is documented as Caucasian rather than Arab, using maize and millet rather than rice, with walnut sauces and a preference for poultry and dairy. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • originates from Russian Foodways documented

    ⚠ NOT A RUSSIAN CUISINE — a CAUCASIAN one, carried by people the Russian conquest of the Caucasus expelled in 1864. The edge records the displacement, not a culinary descent.

  • related to Jordanian Cuisine documented

    Amman itself was refounded as a Circassian village in 1878.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.