Ma’aleh is usually deep-fried cauliflower, served in a sandwich with raw vegetables and tarator.

During the hot summer months, ice-cream shops, called shir yakh feroshees, would sell an assortment of ice creams and other cold desserts. My sister Fatema remembers going into beautiful little shops after school to buy shir yakh. They were colorful and decoratively tiled and had Bollywood music playing in the background. The shir yakh, with rose and pistachios, is a favorite at Parwana, one of her restaurants.

Stimulated most recently by nutrition studies and marketing, pistachios are more available worldwide than ever. But today’s efforts are possible only thanks to patient bioengineering some 3,000 years ago.

Asma Khan introduced her blend of South Asian food to England in 2017 when she founded the Darjeerling Express, a brick-and-mortar restaurant in London that started off as a supper club.

Like the iconic bun kabab of Karachi in Pakistan or Hyderabad in India, a spicy kabab inside a bun is a popular street food in certain regions of the Indian subcontinent.

This classic Middle Eastern salad is made distinctive—and more substantial—by the addition of torn-up bread.

This hearty beef stew, a type of yakhni, or popular stew, is served with rice in the Syrian style.

It was time for the family to sit down for dinner at Nawal Nasrallah’s home in Bloomington, Indiana. Nasrallah had made her 18-year-old daughter Iba’s favorite dish, Iraqi-style eggplant biryani, in honor of the college acceptance letter Iba had just received. Iba spooned the biryani onto her plate, took a bite and burst into tears. “Where am I going to find food like this at school?” she asked.

Palace cake was made in honor of the gods who were worshipped in the temples of Ur on the banks of the Euphrates. It contained raisins, aniseed, and an unbelievable amount of fat and dates.