Milk and Cereals: Identifying Food and Food Identity amongFallāhīnand Bedouin in Jordan

This article outlines traditional ways that food, principally wheat and milk products, are prepared for storage and eaten in the Levant. Food is an important component of human culture, which not only provides nutrition, but is also used to cement social ties and mark occasions. Foods prepared and consumed by farming and pastoral groups help to define their respective identities and emphasise difference. All the groups discussed here, sedentary farmers, semi-nomadic farmers and goat-herding bedouin, rely on similar raw ingredients and preparation of foodstuffs, but some aspects are unique to one and not to the others. Changes in local diet over the past 100 years also reflect profound social and political changes within the region over this period.