Leblebi ( tr, leblebi; acm, لبلبي, leblebi; ar, قضامة, Qdameh, Qudamah; fa, نخودچی, Nokhodchi; scn, Càlia) is a

snack A snack is a small portion of food generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home. Traditionally, snacks are p ...

made from roasted

chickpea The chickpea or chick pea (''Cicer arietinum'') is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. Its different types are variously known as gram" or Bengal gram, garbanzo or garbanzo bean, or Egyptian pea. Chickpea seeds are high ...

s, common and popular in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, and sometimes seasoned with salt, hot spices, dried

clove Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, ...

s, or candy coated. In

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

, the term refers to a very popular chickpea-based breakfast soup which also includes

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

and stale

bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...

Chickpea The chickpea or chick pea (''Cicer arietinum'') is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. Its different types are variously known as gram" or Bengal gram, garbanzo or garbanzo bean, or Egyptian pea. Chickpea seeds are high ...

s used for leblebi are selected for shape, size, color, and harvesting time, and vary by cultivar. Generally, large-seeded (8–9 mm in diameter and 30–50 g of 100 kernel weight ), lighter-colored, round, and smooth surfaced ''Kabuli'' chickpeas are preferred; a thick seed coat and hull, easy to remove from the kernel is requisite. Harvesting time determines the tempering process and quality of leblebi; chickpeas are cleaned and classified by size, with undeveloped, damaged, shrunken, and broken chickpeas discarded. There are two different kinds of leblebi- ''dehulled leblebi'' (Sarı Leblebi and Girit Leblebi) and ''nondehulled leblebi'' (Beyaz Leblebi and Sakız Leblebi) -introduced from

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, and some parts of

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

by Turks. Production ranges from Turkey to the

. In Turkey, the primary leblebi-producing region is

Çorum Çorum () (Medieval Greek: Ευχάνεια, romanized: Euchaneia) is a northern Anatolian city that is the capital of the Çorum Province of Turkey. Çorum is located inland in the central Black Sea Region of Turkey, and is approximately from ...

, with a few additional local varieties such as ''Ağın Leblebi'', Çorum ''Leblebi'', and Mardin ''Leblebi''.

History

Record of the origins of leblebi are scarce, though it is thought to date back to 1000–1500 CE in Iran.

Methods

The methods of leblebi production are an inherited tradition, with the steps and the equipment used varying. Utensils generally include tools for cleaning, grading, and heating, with preparation as follows: # cleaning and grading # soaking # tempering (preheating and resting) # boiling # resting # roasting # dehulling

Etymology

Leblebi likely comes from the Arabic word (), referring to ''

Lablab ''Lablab purpureus'' is a species of bean in the family Fabaceae. It is native to Africa and it is cultivated throughout the tropics for food.

'', a domesticated pulse with edible beans – thus 'leblebi' means 'made from leblab'.

Beyond Turkey

Roasted chickpeas are a popular snack in

and throughout the

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

( el, στραγάλια),

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Trivia

Ottoman-Armenian composer

Tigran Chukhajian Tigran Gevorki Chukhajian ( hy, Տիգրան Չուխաճեան, tr, Dikran Çuhacıyan; 1837 – March 11, 1898) was an Ottoman Armenian composer and conductor, and the founder of the first opera institution in the Ottoman Empire. Biography ...

(1837–1898) composed an operetta titled ''Leblebidji Hor-Hor Agha'' (The Chickpea Vendor) in 1875.

References

* Bilgir (1976).Türk leblebilerinin yapılışı ve bileşimi üzerinde araştırmalar. Ege Üniversitesi Ziraat Fakültesi Yayınları. No:232, Bornova İzmir:Ege Üniversitesi Matbaası,106.
Leblebi: a Roasted Chickpea Product as a Traditional Turkish Snack Food
Food Reviews International, Vol 20, Number 3/2004, pages 257 - 274, (2004).
Comparison of physical properties of raw and roasted chickpeas (leblebi)
Food Research International, Vol 31; Number 9, pages 659–665, (1999). {{Cuisine of Turkey, dish Snack foods Middle Eastern cuisine Turkish cuisine Arab cuisine Western Armenian cuisine Turkish words and phrases Chickpea dishes

History

Methods

Etymology

Beyond Turkey

Trivia

See also

References