In an attempt to thwart Israel’s claiming of the hummus dish a bunch of Lebanese chefs and helpers gathered to make the world’s biggest hummus dish ever – breaking Israel’s record. AP explains: “Lebanese chefs react (above) after preparing a massive plate of hummus, seen in the middle, weighing more then 2,056 kilograms, during a bid to break a record previously held by Israel and reclaim ownership over the popular Middle Eastern dish, in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday Oct. 24, 2009. The event is part of a simmering war between Lebanon and Israel over regional cuisine. Lebanese businessmen accuse Israel of stealing traditional Middle Eastern dishes, like hummus, and marketing them worldwide as Israeli products.”

That true. But, the Lebanese could have easily proven that hummus is more Lebanese than israeli by explaining that the name is Arabic. Here’s what wikipedia says about it: “the word comes from Arabic: حمّص‎ḥummuṣ^[2] ‘chickpeas’. Like other Arabic loanwords, its spelling in English is unstable.^[2] The earliest use of the wordhummus in English noted by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was in 1955.^[3] Among the common spellings for this word as transliterated into English arehummus, hommos and hoummos. The spelling humus is avoided in English due to its having the same spelling as another English word, though this is the most common Turkish spelling^[2] and the OED indicates the word entered the English language from Turkish.^[3] The full Arabic name of the prepared spread is حُمُّص بطحينة (ḥummuṣ bi ṭaḥīna) which means chickpeas with tahina.”