Levantine cuisine

Levantine cuisine is the traditional cuisine of the Levant, known in Arabic as the Bilad ash-Sham and Mashriq. This region shared many culinary traditions with Ottoman cuisine before and during the Turkish-Ottoman Empire, and it continues to carry an influentially mainstream character in a majority of the dishes today. It is found in the modern states of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and parts of southern Turkey near Adana, Gaziantep, and Antakya (the former Vilayet of Aleppo). In the broader family of Mediterranean cuisine, Cypriot cuisine also has strong Levantine influences.

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Levantine cuisine is meze including tabbouleh, hummus and baba ghanoush.