Eid

Grape leaves rolled thin as cigars around rice — the dish that measures a cook's patience.

3 versions

Burghul and meat, shaped a hundred ways — the crown jewel of Levantine cooking.

3 versions

Lamb cooked in fermented jameed yogurt over rice — the dish of honor, weddings, and reconciliation.

2 versions

Cored zucchini stuffed with rice and meat — the dish grandmothers judge each other by.

2 versions

The Gulf's great rice platter — spiced, smoky, and built for a crowd.

2 versions

Yemen's smoke-perfumed rice and meat, traditionally cooked in a buried tandoor.

1 version

Molten cheese under crisp golden pastry, drowned in orange-blossom syrup — the region's most contested treasure.

3 versions

Semolina cookies stuffed with dates or nuts, pressed in wooden molds — the cookie of every holiday, for every faith.

3 versions

The butter cookies of every Levantine holiday tin — swirled, sandwiched, and dipped in chocolate.

1 version

The melt-away shortbread that must stay snow white.

1 version

Iraq's swirled date cookies, perfumed with cardamom — the scent of Iraqi Eid.

1 version

The Maghreb's semolina-date diamonds, fried and honeyed.

1 version

The cup that opens every majlis — cardamom-golden in the Gulf, dark and bitter in the Levant.

3 versions

Rice, meat, and whole garlic baked in a copper pot in a wood oven — Hebron's pride.

1 version

Golden phyllo parcels of spiced rice, meat, and peas — each guest gets their own treasure.

1 version

Iraq's flipped pot of stuffed vegetables, sweet-sour and built like architecture.

1 version

Iraq's grandest platter — slow lamb over almond-and-raisin rice.

1 version

Algiers' hand-cut noodles steamed like couscous under a white chicken broth.

1 version

Flaky syrup-soaked pastry under a slab of buffalo cream — Baghdad's Friday-morning ceremony.

1 version

Pistachio paste pressed under ashta — the emerald showpiece of Lebanese sweet trays.

1 version

Aleppo's nut-stuffed semolina fingers, dipped in cloud-white natef.

1 version