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Make Dip, Not War

Israel battles Lebanon for hummus supremacy

by
Marc Tracy
January 08, 2010
One of the chefs mashes some chickpeas, January 4th.(Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
One of the chefs mashes some chickpeas, January 4th.(Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)

This is the type of Israeli-Lebanese conflict that we can get behind: only a few months after a bunch of Lebanese chefs set the Guinness World Record for making the most hummus, 50 chefs in the Arab Israeli village of Abu Gosh one-upped them, making a single vat of hummus *weighing almost 4.5 tons!* The fight over hummus between these two countries goes deeper than world records: Lebanon recently tried, and failed, to get the European Union to certify the dip, thought to be one of the oldest prepared foods in the world, as a Lebanese specialty.

“I’ve heard Lebanon is already planning to strike back,” the Guinness adjudicator said. As long as their ammunition is chickpeas and olive oil, then we wish them the best of luck.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.