{"id":1075,"date":"2006-07-11T20:46:02","date_gmt":"2006-07-12T04:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/?p=1075"},"modified":"2006-07-11T20:48:15","modified_gmt":"2006-07-12T04:48:15","slug":"a-brief-history-of-falafel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/?p=1075","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Falafel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had me some more of Cap&#8217;n Dyke&#8217;s beet salad tonight, which means I&#8217;ll be peeing a fine Robert Mondavi Ros\u00c3\u00a9 for the next two or three days. And in honor of that observation, I changed the blog&#8217;s subtitle. See above.<\/p>\n<p>A combination of tonight&#8217;s dinner and an otherwise blank slate from the blog muse led to tonight&#8217;s topic. Drumroll, please, for a brief history of falafel . . .<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/chabad.buffalo.edu\/Falafel.htm\"><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"15\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/Falafel.jpg\" \/><\/a>Falafel feels like comfort food to me, yet I think I had my first falafel sandwich during med school &#8212; across the street from San Jose&#8217;s Century Theater complex, at an international food court which no longer exists. Yes, I got through four years of Berkeley and ate nary a falafel. Amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the history.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/waltonfeed.com\/self\/beans.html#garbanzo\"><strong>5400 BCE:<\/strong><\/a> Garbanzo beans (chickpeas) first cultivated. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.icarda.cgiar.org\/Publications\/Cook\/Chickpea\/Chickpea.html\">Confirmatory second source:<\/a> &#8220;The earliest chickpeas found on the Hacilar site near Burdur in Turkey, have been estimated to be 7500 years old.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.icarda.cgiar.org\/Publications\/Cook\/Chickpea\/Chickpea.html\"><strong>1000 BCE:<\/strong><\/a> Earliest literary reference to chickpeas.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Iliad by Homer (about 1000-800 B.C) provides the most ancient literary reference. The arrows of Helenus bouncing off the breastplate of Menelaos are compared with beans and chickpeas being thrown by the winnower.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andrea_Mackris\">October 13, 2004:<\/a><\/strong> Fox News Television Producer Andrea Mackris files suit against Bill O&#8217;Reilly, alleging, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thesmokinggun.com\/archive\/1013042oreilly1.html\">among other sordid things<\/a>, that O&#8217;Reilly had repeatedly called her to suggest innovative sexual practices of which they might partake, including a nice shower scrub-down with a loofah, or as O&#8217;Reilly liked to call it, &#8220;the falafel thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>November, 2004:<\/strong> Falafel Sex puts up <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/falafelsex.blogspot.com\/2004\/11\/aftermath-november-3-2004.html\">its inaugural post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>January, 2005:<\/strong> Bill O&#8217;Reilly publishes his manifesto:<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/falafel2.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p>(Pinched from <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/kinja.com\/user\/plemeljr\">this place<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Well, I told you it would be a brief history.<\/p>\n<p>Heartwarming falafel moments, anyone? Ever been rubbed down with one? I prefer a bit of tahini sauce with my falafel massage, thank you very much.<\/p>\n<p>D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had me some more of Cap&#8217;n Dyke&#8217;s beet salad tonight, which means I&#8217;ll be peeing a fine Robert Mondavi Ros\u00c3\u00a9 for the next two or three days. And in honor of that observation, I changed the blog&#8217;s subtitle. See above. A combination of tonight&#8217;s dinner and an otherwise blank slate from the blog muse&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/?p=1075\">Continue Reading A Brief History of Falafel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-humor","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}