Taboon bread

Taboon bread

Taboon bread, main component of musakhan
Type	Flatbread wrap
Place of origin	Middle East
Cookbook: Taboon bread   Media: Taboon bread

Taboon bread (Arabic: خبز طابون, romanized: khubz ṭābūn) is Levantine flatbread baked in a taboon or tannur 'tandoor' clay oven, similar to the various tandoor breads found in many parts of Asia. It is used as a base or wrap in many cuisines, and eaten with different accompaniments.^[1]

Variations

Traditional tabun with lid, from Palestine

Taboon bread is an important part of Palestinian cuisine,^[2][3][4] traditionally baked on a bed of small hot stones in the taboon oven.^[5] It is the base of musakhan, often considered the national dish of Palestine. Gustaf Dalman, a German orientalist, documented its making in Palestine in the early 20th-century, among other types of breads.^[6] In Palestine, folded flat-bread was often filled with a spinach and onion mixture, or with cheese curds and onion mixture, or with raisins and pine nuts.^[6] The ordinary taboon-bread was slightly smaller in size than the ordinary tannur-bread.^[7] Over the centuries, bread-making in communal taboons played an important social role for women in Palestinian villages.^[5]

Cookbook

In October 2024, Hisham Assaad published his second cookbook names Taboon: Sweet & Savoury Delights from the Lebanese Bakery which features recipes from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria and highlights the Taboon bread, its method of making and an easy way to make it at home, its uses, and the resurgence of Taboon oven and bread during the attacks and destruction on Gaza (2023-2024).

See also

• Lahmacun
• Manakish

References

1. Skloot, Joe (February 28, 2002). "Falafel: Ambassador of peace or cuisine from mideast?". The Daily Princetonian. Archived from the original on 2009-08-19. Retrieved 2018-12-06.
2. Albala, K. (2011). Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia. Greenwood. pp. 28–29. ISBN 978-0-313-37626-9. Retrieved 2019-10-03.
3. Whittemore, William Meynell (1874). Sunshine, conducted by W.M. Whittemore [and others]. p. 6 – via Internet Archive.
4. Albala, K. (2016). At the Table: Food and Family around the World: Food and Family around the World. ABC-CLIO. p. 171. ISBN 978-1-61069-738-5. Retrieved 2019-10-03.
5. "e-turathuna-Tabun - Bethlehem University". www.bethlehem.edu. Archived from the original on 2019-02-03. Retrieved 2019-02-03.
6. Dalman, Gustaf (1964). Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina (in German). Vol. 4 (Bread, oil and wine). Hildesheim. pp. 114–115. OCLC 312676221. (reprinted from 1935 edition)
7. Dalman, Gustaf (1964). Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina (in German). Vol. 4 (Bread, oil and wine). Hildesheim. OCLC 312676221. (reprinted from 1935 edition), Diagram 30