Food
What to eat, where to find it, what it costs.
100 Food
Eryngo (Qurs’anneh) Salad
Qurs’anneh, a wild spiny herb of Syria’s coastal hills, is eaten raw: chopped with salt, lemon and olive oil. Three village ways to make it, and how it differs.
Raw chopped eryngo with salt, lemon and olive oil; in some homes with tomato or crushed garlic · A home salad — in season the herb is sold at the greengrocer; ask the price there · Tartus
Qarisheh (Syrian curd cheese)
Syrian curd cheese from buttermilk: salted, boiled, strained through cloth and pressed. Fresh at breakfast from Homs to Latakia, and the base of shanklish.
Variable — ask the price per disc at the counter · Homs
Ful Nabit (Sprouted Fava Beans)
Dried fava beans left to sprout, then boiled and served on a plate with lemon. The Eid snack of old Damascus, a Ramadan night nibble, and a street cart staple today.
Variable — ask the price of a plate at the cart · Damascus
Dibs al-Flayfleh (Syrian red pepper paste)
Syrian red pepper paste, made from dried and crushed peppers: 10 kilos give 1 kilo. It goes into makdous and is sold by the kilo from tins in a Damascus market.
Thick dark-red paste crushed from dried village peppers · Variable — ask the price per kilo at the stall · Damascus
Baniyas Home-Cured Bonito (‘Tuna’)
On the Syrian coast ‘home tuna’ is bonito poached with lemon and onion, then jarred under olive oil for the winter months when waves keep fishing boats ashore.
Bonito poached in water with lemon and onion, jarred under olive oil with garlic and salt · Homemade, not a dish you buy — the cost follows that week's price for fresh bonito · Tartus
Awja and Janarek (Green Almonds and Green Plums)
The first spring stall in Damascus: green almonds (awja) from the coast in late February, sour green plums (janarek) in April. The city licenses both as one stall.
Variable — most expensive at the start of the season; ask at the stall · Damascus
Zaqarit, bulgur balls in yoghurt
Fine bulgur kneaded with onion into small balls and simmered in hot yoghurt, with no meat and no filling: the dish Daraa households make in winter, Ramadan and Eid.
Not a plate you buy — it belongs to the home table · Daraa
Tallaj, the semolina pastry of Arwad and Tartus
Thin semolina sheets filled with walnuts or cashews, baked in ghee and soaked in syrup: tallaj is the Ramadan sweet of Tartus, first made on the island of Arwad.
Varies — ask the maker for the price per tray or kilo · Tartus
Tamriyeh, the Ramadan pastry of Homs
In Homs during Ramadan, thin dough is fried golden and dipped into syrup, filled with clotted cream, dates or nothing. What tamriyeh is and where to find it.
Varies — priced as an everyday sweet, ask at the counter · Homs
Thrud (Deiri tharid)
Toasted bread spread over a wide tray, soaked in lamb broth and topped with rice and okra stew. This is Deir ez-Zor’s tharid, cooked in okra season and at iftar.
Thrud al-bamya: toasted bread, broth, rice and lamb with okra · Not a plate you buy — it belongs to home and hospitality tables · Deir ez-Zor
Rashouf: lentil, wheat and jameed soup
Lentils, chickpeas and cracked wheat cooked in yoghurt or jameed and finished with onion fried in olive oil: the winter soup of the Hauran, sipped hot on snowy days.
Not a plate you buy — it belongs to the home table · Daraa
Raqaqa (Makmoura), Hauran layered chicken pie
Thin sheets of dough layered with chicken and onion cooked in olive oil, baked slowly and cut into triangles: the Hauran’s dish for guests and Fridays, with yoghurt.
Not a plate you buy — it belongs to the home table · Daraa
