Syrian culinary heritage is but a fraction of the richness of Syrian heritage and history. Everywhere throughout the country, from affluent bazaars in Damascus to villages, the home space has been social rooms of sociality and performance whose center in the middle is food in life celebration and ordinary life. These have come down with the centuries along with ancient recipes, aromatic smelling spices, and verdant food which are the very epitomes of that representative character of most plain Syrian concepts of home and hospitalidad.
They consist of the old like the mujaddara, the lentil and rice, and the staples of pita bread which continue to be in the limelight of the Syrian cuisine. The baking of bread for decades and decades continues to be a daily routine. The process transports one back to yesteryear in the kitchen with the aroma of fresh bread and the leaves of the stir-fry in the air.
Food sharing is a highly influential Syrian cultural norm. At celebrations, but even within normal meals consumed in home environments, food will be consumed primarily from a single shared communal vessel, cementing people further to each other and to communalism. The practice is an indicator of highly committed values to family and communal living within Syrian society.
Syrian cooks have gone as far and wide as to export their food by elevating their art to cater to contemporary tastes and placing their art on the plate at international food festivals. Spice and flavor mastery is what the cooks are offering, and it is elevating foods such as fattoush and khoresh and enabling conservation and Syrian cuisine adjustment.
Syrian food culture is firmly based on more universal survival habits, Syrian chefs nevertheless convert their food into survival food, hope food, and endurance food by running take-out restaurants, maintaining websites, and offering cooking lessons. They make cultural exchange more feasible and greater respect for Syria’s contribution to international cuisine.
Syrian culinary heritage is continuity, society, and history from Damascus tables to global tables. All of us have a part to play in ensuring continuity, and transferring the Syria tastes and history to future generations must be achieved.
