Maqluba (also attested by a variety of other spellings in English;Arabic:مَقْلُوبَة,romanized: maqlūba,lit. 'upside-down') is a traditionalLevantine dish, a variety ofPilaf[1] that is popular across Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon,Israel, and Iraq.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] It consists of meat, rice, and fried vegetables placed in a pot which is flipped upside down when served, hence the name.[9]
The earliest mention of the dish is found in a 13th-century cookbook,Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh (The Book of Dishes), written byMuhammad Baghdadi during theAbbasid Caliphate.[10]
Ingredients
Maqluba showing layers
Maqluba can include various vegetables, such as fried tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower, and eggplant, accompanied by either chicken or lamb.[11] The most common are cauliflower and eggplant. All the ingredients are carefully placed in the pot in layers, so that when the pot is inverted for serving, the dish looks like a layer cake.[9][12] Coastal cities often use fish in place of the meat.[13][14]
Maqluba is typically garnished with pine nuts and chopped fresh parsley.[15] It is sometimes served with salad and fresh yogurt, and is often prepared for feasts and large gatherings.
Politics
The dish has been a matter of controversy in theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict, with Palestinians describing attempts to label the dish as Israeli as amounting tocultural appropriation.[16][17] The dish has been used by Palestinian activists to mobilize people to join protests atAl-Aqsa Mosque in theIsraeli-occupiedEast Jerusalem; in 2017, Israeli police arrested a Palestinian woman who had organized a maqluba eating gathering at Al-Aqsa.[18]
Sincethe unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, which involved theGülen movement, the dish has been seen as a "Gulenist delicacy" and eating or preparing it has been considered by some as evidence of membership of the movement.[19]
^Ottolenghi, Yotam (2015). "Jerusalem on a Plate".Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies.15 (1). University of California Press: 3.doi:10.1525/gfc.2015.15.1.1.ISSN1529-3262.Maqluba, an upside-down rice and vegetable cake that is actually Palestinian
