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Aleppian Foodways

المطبخ الحلبي

City

⚠ A FIRST-RANK CUISINE, AND THE SPEC IS RIGHT TO GIVE IT ITS OWN SYSTEM. Aleppo sat at the end of the caravan routes, was the Ottoman Empire’s third city, and holds an Armenian, Kurdish, Syriac, Jewish and Turkmen as well as Arab population — and its kitchen is the most spiced and most elaborate in the Levant. The signatures: ALEPPO PEPPER, dried and coarsely ground; POMEGRANATE MOLASSES; WALNUT; PISTACHIO from the surrounding plateau; CUMIN, allspice and cinnamon in savoury food; TAMARIND; and sour cherry. The dishes: MUHAMMARA; dozens of named KIBBEH; KEBAB HALABI and kebab karaz; LAHM BI AJIN, the thin meat flatbread; MHAMMARA and mutabbal; the stuffed vegetables; and the pistachio sweets and pastries. ⚠ AND THE CITY WAS DEVASTATED between 2012 and 2016 — the souk that was the spice trade’s own building burned, and much of the food industry and its people are now in Turkey, Lebanon and Europe. Aleppian cooking is today substantially a DIASPORA cuisine, which is recorded rather than stepped around.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Aleppines community documented
  • Armenians community documented
  • Kurds community documented
  • Syriacs community documented

Languages: North Levantine Arabic, Western Armenian, Northern Kurdish, Turoyo

What is recorded

  • Aleppo was the Ottoman Empire’s third city and the terminus of caravan routes, with Armenian, Kurdish, Syriac, Jewish and Turkmen as well as Arab populations. Its cuisine is documented as the most heavily spiced and most elaborate in the Levant, characterised by Aleppo pepper, pomegranate molasses, walnut, pistachio and sour cherry. The city was substantially destroyed between 2012 and 2016, including the covered souk, and Aleppian cooking is now substantially a diaspora cuisine. documented
  • Ottoman Aleppo: the empire’s third city and the terminus of the caravan routes, where the most spiced kitchen in the Levant is elaborated. documented
  • The battle for Aleppo: the covered souk burns and much of the old city and its food trades are destroyed; Aleppian cooking becomes substantially a diaspora cuisine. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • part of Syrian Cuisine documented

    ⚠ A first-rank cuisine in its own right, not a regional variation of a national one.

  • related to Armenian Foodways documented

    Aleppo received Armenian genocide survivors from 1915; the influence runs in both directions and is documented in both kitchens.

  • related to Turkish Foodways documented

    ⚠ Aleppo’s hinterland was cut from it by the 1920 border. Gaziantep and Urfa share its pepper, its pistachio and much of its kitchen, and neither city derives from the other.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • related to Kibbeh documented

    ⚠ Aleppo holds the largest number of NAMED variants, which is a claim about variety and not about invention.

  • related to Muhammara documented

    A strong and well-documented Aleppine association; the origin claim is widely repeated and not conclusively established.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.