What is Hummus?
Hummus is an ancient recipe straight from the Middle East. It is a combination of chickpeas and acids pureed into a paste and spread on bread, chips of varying types and vegetables. It’s also often seen as a dip for these items, too.
In the US and other Western countries, hummus takes a great many forms. With the recent rise in popularity, hummus can be found in simple forms with just chickpeas with maybe a vegetable or two for flavoring, or in “multi-layer” style hummuses with more ingredients than the label has room for.
In this article, we’ll be exploring the history of hummus and how to make it at home, as well as examining it’s rise to fame. Join us for a taste of this wonderful paste.
A History of Hummus
The history of hummus is a little on the vague side. Indeed, chickpeas in various mashes and purees were popular for thousands of years in the Middle East. These little legumes were easily grown even in the strongest of heat and made up a large portion of both animal feeds and casual human meals. With the lentil, the chickpea is one of the strongest protein sources in a great deal of older Middle Eastern recipes.
Some of the earliest chickpeas found in human history date back to the 6700 B.C.E, though this must be noted that these were wild chickpeas. Wild chickpeas are a little hardier than the domesticated chickpea of today, though the outer shell was a bit harder and the protein percentage wasn’t quite as high.
Hummus, however, isn’t just the chickpea. We also have to look at when sesame paste (also known as tahini) turned up in the Middle East. We must also look for the appearance of acids, garlic, and other such modern ingredients for hummus if we take the dish to be what is represented today.
We have an official date for hummus being recorded in Cairo around the 1209 C.E date, however, we must remember that recipes often sprout up long before they’re officially recorded. With high trade happening, especially in the Middle East, long before this it’s safe to assume that hummus, as we know it today, was likely produced around 1000 C.E. That’s right, we’re likely looking at a very large window before the popular paste was named, recorded and cemented as a common food in the area.
So what made hummus appear in the first place? Chickpea production was very common and, typically, common foods remain just that. They are rarely elevated and rarely receive notoriety, much less lasting through the many centuries to become popular at such a late date. Hummus was a simple food, but it was the citrus that really made it pop.
Citrus was not necessarily a new food in the Middle East. Indeed, we have a history of lemons in that area of the world about 500 years earlier than the first recording of hummus. However, around the time that hummus became popular, the chickpea was both well beloved and easily available regardless of the season. Lemons were much the same, with a very long shelf-life even after the season had long passed.
The marriage of these two ingredients, along with other common things, became a quick and popular snack. For some, it was even capable of being a meal with a little pita or other flatbread. I hesitate to liken hummus to America’s peanut butter, but the comparison isn’t entirely incorrect.
Once hummus became popular enough for inclusion in such expensive productions as books, the dish really began to expand. Chickpeas were a great trade legume for those outside the region who did not have ready access to them and with that trade went hummus. The spice trade was also a great assistance to hummus’s spread, given that spices such as cumin are often added to the paste. Hummus stored very well for passages and it was a great way to show off chickpeas, citrus fruit, and spices all at once.
Hummus can now be found all over the world in as many flavors as can be dreamed.
Making Hummus
Making hummus is pretty simple. It’s a fantastic thing for kids to make as well as those who are a little uncertain in the kitchen–or even for those who want to save a little cash and make their own.
We’ll begin with a simple, plain hummus recipe and include suggestions for what to add to it at the bottom.
Start with a large can of chickpeas, approximately 29 oz. A few ounces either way won’t make much difference in this recipe, so don’t stress too much if you can only find a 26.9 oz can.
Drain the chickpeas and rinse well. There is typically a good deal of salt in a can of chickpeas and we don’t want our hummus to be too salty. Add these to a 6 cup food processor. Blitz them a few times to make them a little easier to deal with.
To the food processor add about 1/4-1/2 cup of tahini. Tahini is also known as sesame paste. If you have trouble locating this item, try your local Asian and Middle Eastern grocery stores. If it is listed as sesame paste it will work just as well as any other tahini. Dark sesame paste may also be used in a pinch but do be aware that it will dye your hummus a darker color.
Again, pulse these ingredients a few times. We aren’t looking for a smooth paste yet, but lightly pre-mixing these ingredients does help out.
Add 1/2 as much olive oil to your food processor as you added tahini. For example, if you added 1/4 cup of tahini, add 1/8th cup of olive oil. I prefer to use a garlic flavored olive oil or sunflower oil. The type of oil (not including canola) isn’t quite as important, but olive oil is the traditional type. Once you’ve made this basic recipe a few times, I suggest trying other types of oils or even flavored oils. See what you like best.
Puree this into a paste. If the paste is not coming together, add a little bit more oil. Is it too thin? Add a little more tahini.
Once you have your paste, add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. If you like, you may also add a few cloves of garlic to taste as well. The best thing about hummus is that you’re unlikely to “over paste” your snack. You can keep adjusting for quite some time without any issue.
Suggestions for adding to this very simple recipe:
Try adding some dried hot peppers for a real kick
Avocado works wonderfully as a substitute for tahini in non-traditional hummus
Walnuts can be substituted for chickpeas with a slight oil reduction if you’d prefer a nut-based hummus
Adding a little cocoa along with your hot peppers can really give your hummus some depth, but don’t add sugar. Hummus should be a savory dish.
Recent Popularity of Hummus
Hummus has seen popular rises twice in the United States; once during the 1960’s and 1970’s, and once far more recently.
During the 60’s and 70’s, we saw an influx of less common foods due to the overall curious nature of the youth of that era. A great deal of Eastern influence entered both pop culture and religion during that time, bringing with it common dishes like pita, a rise in popularity of eggplant-based dishes, and hummus.
We find that hummus was largely kept simple during this time in the United States, if for no other reason than the basic recipe was incredibly popular and few people saw reason to alter something that was already selling so well. Toward the end of the 1970’s, the United States was reverting to more traditional foods and those of convenience. We saw the slip of sales of dry and canned chickpeas, though sales of prepared hummus resulted in less slippage than it’s raw ingredients.
In the late 1990’s, we see another blip on the hummus radar. In search of healthier foods than a constant diet of pizza, soda, and hamburgers that make up the American way of life, those in the United States began to reach for other countries. Asia was a quick fad that soon led to Middle Eastern cooking. Again, hummus appeared on the scene as a high protein snack with few attributes Americans were searching to eliminate.
With the advent of the Atkins diet, South Beach and other such ways of eating gaining popularity, the early 2000’s saw hummus being suggested to those weaning themselves away from carbohydrate-heavy diets. While the dish was still higher in carbohydrates than these diets preferred the average person intake on a daily basis, it was an improvement and hummus became a “health” food.
At this writing, hummus is available at most every grocery store in most parts of the United States. It is a common snack food, even going so far as to pair up with popular pretzel companies to create individual-sized quick-grab snacks at grocery stores around the country.