Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Middle Eastern recipes. This page provides links to all the Middle Eastern recipes presented on this site, with 119 recipes in total.

These recipes, for the major part, originate in the Middle East. Otherwise they are fusion recipes with major Middle Eastern influences.

Middle East is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early 20th century. The term 'Middle East' has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and being seen as too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt (not just the Sinai) and all of Turkey (including East Thrace).

Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world. The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the geopolitical importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Several major religions have their origins in the Middle East, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Arabs constitute the main ethnic group in the region,[8] followed by Turks, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Assyrians, Iraqi Turkmen, Yazidis, and Greek Cypriots.

The Middle East generally has a hot, arid climate, especially in the Arabian and Egyptian regions. Several major rivers provide irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas here, such as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia, and the basin of the Jordan River that spans most of the Levant. These regions are collectively known as the Fertile Crescent, and comprise the core of what historians had long referred to as the cradle of civilization (a label now applied to multiple regions of the world). Conversely, the Levantine coast and most of Turkey have relatively temperate climates typical of the Mediterranean, with dry summers and cool, wet winters. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of petroleum, with monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula in particular benefiting economically from petroleum exports. Because of the arid climate and heavy reliance on the fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is both a heavy contributor to climate change and a region expected to be severely negatively impacted by it.

The term 'Middle East' may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office. However, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to 'designate the area between Arabia and India'. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry which would become known as the Great Game. Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its centre, the Persian Gulf. He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the Middle East, and said that after Egypt's Suez Canal, it was the most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the Russians from advancing towards British India. Mahan first used the term in his article 'The Persian Gulf and International Relations', published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal.

Until World War II, it was customary to refer to areas centred around Turkey and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the 'Near East', while the 'Far East' centred on China, and the Middle East then meant the area from Mesopotamia to Burma, namely the area between the Near East and the Far East. In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term 'Middle East' gained broader usage in Europe and the United States, with the Middle East Institute founded in Washington, D.C. in 1946, among other usage.

Perhaps because of the influence of the Western press, the Arabic equivalent of Middle East (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط ash-Sharq al-Awsaṭ) has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press, comprising the same meaning as the term 'Middle East' in North American and Western European usage. The designation, Mashriq, also from the Arabic root for East, also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the Maghreb, the western part). Even though the term originated in the West, apart from Arabic, other languages of countries of the Middle East also use a translation of it. The Persian equivalent for Middle East is خاورمیانه (Khāvar-e miyāneh), the Hebrew is המזרח התיכון (hamizrach hatikhon), the Turkish is Orta Doğu and the Greek is Μέση Ανατολή (Mesi Anatoli).

Various concepts are often being paralleled to the Middle East, most notably the Near East, Fertile Crescent, and Levant. The Near East, Fertile Crescent, and Levant are geographical concepts, which refer to large sections of the modern-day Middle East, with the Near East being the closest to the Middle East in its geographical meaning. Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking, the Maghreb region of North Africa is sometimes included.

The Countries in the Middle East

Arms	Flag	Name of Territory	Capital	Name in Official Language(s)
		Akrotiri and Dhekelia	Episkopi	Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia
		Bahrain	Manama	مملكة البحرين (Arabic: Mamlakat al-Baḥrayn)
		Cyprus	Nicosia	Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία (Greek)/Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti (Turkish)
		Egypt	Cairo	جمهورية مصر العربية (Arabic: Jumhūrīyat Miṣr al-ʻArabīyah)
		Iran	Tehran	جمهوری اسلامی ایران (Persian: Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Irân)
		Iraq	Baghdad	جُمْهُورِيَّة ٱلْعِرَاق (Arabic: Jumhūriyya al-ʿIrāq) کۆماری عێراق (Kurdish: Komarî Êraq)
		Israel	Jerusalem	מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל/دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل
		Jordan	Amman	المملكة الأردنية الهاشمية (Arabic: al-Mamlakah al-ʾUrdunniyah al-Hāshimiyah)
		Kuwait	Kuwait City	دَوْلَة ٱلْكُوَيْت (Arabic: Dawla al-Kuwayt)
		Lebanon	Beiruit	الجمهورية اللبنانية (Arabic: al-Jumhūrīyah al-Lubnānīyah)
		Northern Cyprus (Unrecognised)	North Nicosia	Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti (Turkish)
		Oman	Muscat	ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާسلطنة عُمان (Arabic: Salṭanat ʻUmān)
		Palestine	Ramallah	دولة فلسطين (Arabic: Dawlat Filasṭīn)
		Qatar	Doha	دولة قطر (Arabic: Dawlat Qaṭar)
		Saudi Arabia	Riyadh	ٱلْمَمْلَكَة ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة ٱلسُّعُودِيَّة (Arabic: al-Mamlaka al-ʿArabiyya al-Suʿūdiyya)
		Syria	Damascus	الجمهورية العربية السورية (Arabic: al-Jumhūriyya al-ʿArabiyya as-Sūriya)
		Turkey	Ankara	Türkiye Cumhuriyeti
		United Arab Emirates	Abu Dhabi	الإمارات العربية المتحدة
		Yemen	Sana'a (Houthi-led government) Aden (Seat of government)	ٱلْجُمْهُورِيَّةُ ٱلْيَمَنِيَّةُ (Arabic: al-Jumhūriyyatu l-Yamaniyyatu)