"tandour" news and stories

While Arab traders helped facilitate the exchanges that shaped cooking in sub-Saharan Africa, pre-Columbian cuisine of the Middle East often gets short shrift in South Carolina, a noted outpost of African Diaspora foodways.

According to Stephen Sheehi, associate professor of Arab Studies at the University of South Carolina, the Arab world was responsible for cultivating emmer wheat and introducing enslaved Americans' ancestors to bananas and peanuts.

"In that respect, there's always been a tie," Sheehi says.

Exploring Arab contributions to Southern cookery is just one objective of Sheehi's new class, which he warns can't be reduced to a soundbite. The syllabus is also designed to introduce students to concepts of land management, local food and sustainability. Sheehi's students are planting an Arab garden on their campus in Columbia, S.C. and preparing to build a tandour oven, with the resulting bread and veggies pledged to a nearby chapter of Food Not Bombs.