Hummus & Pita Co., the small New York chain of Mediterranean food, introduced hummus-based milkshakes earlier this month. If you thought the humble chick pea hasn’t suffered enough indignities recently, with the hummus craze already spawning “dessert” hummuses (brownie batter? WTF?). But now, sweet hummus isn’t enough—you can drink it through a straw, and it’s vegan and gluten-free.

Is this cultural appropriation? Playing God? Straight-up gross?

Well, it seems that it’s not the latter.

It would be easy to dismiss the shake as disgusting and write it off in righteous indignation, but they’re not bad. Original, chocolate, butter pecan, strawberry— they’re all reasonably tasty (I didn’t sample the fifth flavor, pistachio). That said, none of them taste like hummus. In addition to chickpeas, the shake’s base contains tahini, frozen bananas, dates, almond milk, and a little bit of vanilla and cinnamon. In the “original” shake, the dates and bananas overpower the chickpeas. But between those three substantial ingredients, the shake is pretty thick, and you really need to go at the thing with a straw.

The drinks also very, very sweet— especially the flavored ones. The strawberry shake tastes like pink Nesquik, and the chocolate has little clumps of cocoa powder floating around. The butter pecan is like drinking a cookie—you get the idea. If you don’t have a sweet tooth, you might find these shakes an abomination after all.

But if you’re looking for a vegan milkshake, you could do worse, and pricier; the shake is a reasonable $5 for New York City. (If you keep strictly kosher, sorry— Hummus & Pita Co. doesn’t have a hechsher.)

In conclusion, the bad news is that nothing is sacred, but the good news is that nothing is sacred! If you love hummus, the good stuff lives on, and this isn’t likely to be a chick pea revolution, but a quirk of a city with a lot of hummus products to go around. (Pro-tip, do not order the “choomoos” shake. Just pretend you can’t pronounce it properly like everybody else, including store employees.)

I’ll still never accept the rainbow bagel or funfetti cream cheese, though. That’s a hill to die on.

Image via Twitter

The post Calm Down… Hummus ‘Milkshakes’ Are Fine appeared first on Jewcy.

Hummus: as if you needed another reason to love it! Well, here’s another reason: as America’s love affair with the Middle Eastern dip grows, the humble chickpea is beginning to compete with tobacco as a profitable cash crop for farmers in the tobacco-growing region of the U.S.

In April, The Wall Street Journal reported a 25 percent increase in sales of “refrigerated flavored spreads” from 2010—that’s a category dominated by hummus. One of the largest manufacturers in the country, the (partly) Israeli-owned Sabra Dipping Co., is behind the push to grow more chickpeas. Right now most of their product comes from farms in the Pacific Northwest, but they’re looking to develop a separate crop close to their plant in Virginia to ensure supply (and, no doubt, keep things competitive). I mean, what would the N.F.L. do if their official dip supply ran out mid-season? Perish the thought!

As cigarette sales are rapidly declining (hurrah!), this video from Truth, an anti-smoking campaign directed at teens, prompts a totally relevant question: if we eat enough hummus, could we help put an end to smoking?

It’s actually not a crazy thought. Here’s our recipe. Eat up.

http://youtu.be/4WWFG0n58aw

Related: Sabra Trying to Pass ‘Hummus Bill’ in the U.S.
Make Your Own Hummus at Home With This Easy Recipe!

The post Eat More Hummus, Help End Smoking? appeared first on Jewcy.

It’s been a big week for hummus. First, there was the news that Sabra had filed an 11-page petition with the FDA “to establish a standard of identity” for hummus in the United States. Now, some 15,000 pounds (!) of hummus-related products are being recalled by Lansal Inc. (a.k.a. Hot Mama’s Foods), amid fears of a possible bacterial contamination.

No illnesses have been reported thus far, but the suspected culprit, Listeria monocytogenes, can cause infection and even death in children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems. Symptoms include nausea, abdominal pain, and fever. Lansal Inc. supplies to major national retailers such as Target and Trader Joe’s, so check the list of recalled products to see if you need to throw anything out.

(On the bright side, you can always make your own!)

Related: Sabra Trying to Pass ‘Hummus Bill’ in the U.S.

Image: Shutterstock

The post PSA: Major Hummus Recall appeared first on Jewcy.

The dip monolith Sabra has filed an 11-page petition with the FDA “to establish a standard of identity” for hummus in the United States.

In a statement released on May 19, the company stated that “hummus must be comprised (by weight, besides water) predominately of chickpeas, and must be no less than 5% tahini. Sabra defines hummus as, ‘the semisolid food prepared from mixing cooked, dehydrated, or dried chickpeas and tahini with one or more optional ingredients.'”

At first glance, the whole notion seems a bit outrageous—I mean, c’mon! Defining hummus? Ranking hummus? Does Sabra want to start WWIII?—but the FDA has standards of identity for a number of beloved food products, including peanut butter, white chocolate, and ice cream. SOIs are intended to protect the consumer, so that you know exactly what you’re buying when you’re doing your grocery shopping. (To wit: a lot of Italian olive oil is notoriously… well, not olive oil.) For people with allergies, established standards and clear labeling are especially important. And for hummus purists, there’s no offense more egregious than commercial ‘hummus’ spiked with dairy. (Reader, I tasted it.)

But on the other hand, as lawyer Debra Rade points out, standard setting is  “the most effective way of eliminating the competition… If you set a standard that a competitor cannot meet, it is no longer a competitor,” she explains. “You sell white bean hummus? After the standard is implemented, you don’t sell hummus. You sell white bean dip and that may not be placed in the hummus aisle.”

So Sabra is either doing a great service for the hummus mavens of America, or trying to edge out Tribe. Either way, you can still make your own chickpea dip at home—and you can call it whatever you want.

Image: Sabra

Related: If You Try To Take My Sabra Hummus, I Will Fight You
Recipe: Chick(pea) it to me—Easy Hummus to Make at Home

The post Sabra Trying to Pass ‘Hummus Bill’ in the U.S. appeared first on Jewcy.

• Relatedly, mensch alert: Dustin Hoffman called paramedics after seeing a jogger collapse in Hyde Park.

• At a press conference, Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest character, Admiral General Aladeen, said he put Mel Gibson in charge of the fictional Republic of Wadiya’s Museum of Intolerance.

• Brooklyn Hummus manufacturer Flaum Appetizing will pay $577,000 in back wages to 20 former workers.

• Actor, writer, and radio host Seth Rudetsky, known around here as Moses, the original pushy stage mother, has his own channel, launching this summer:

The post Daily Jewce: Mila and Dustin Save the Day, Hummus Manufacturer Pays Up, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

• Jon Scheyer still has NBA hopes.

• A hummus history.

• Gloria Steinem still totally rules, and wants you to vote for Obama.

• Meet the Fulbright scholar who is bringing brunch, that most glorious of meals, to Krakow.

• BFF alert: Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The post Daily Jewce: Kutsher’s vs. Katz’s, Jon Scheyer’s NBA Hopes, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

Chickpeas, also known as Garbanzo beans, are those little flesh colored legumes that come in a Goya can. Sometimes they’re mashed into a creamy paste by Sabra—or some other inferior brand of hummus. At least that’s what I thought until tonight’s dinner.

I went over to a friend’s apartment to make supper, and along with fresh green beans, ripe tomatoes, and multiple bulbs of garlic, she whipped out a bowl of what looked like dried out raisins. “They’re heirloom chickpeas,” she said. “My sister got them for me.” WTF? On closer inspection these brown spheres did resemble a bean, but definitely not the plump spheres I occasionally tossed into green salads. But that’s just the thing about heirloom vegetables. Most of the vegetables found in supermarkets are bred (or genetically modified) to 1. look pretty 2. stand up to the long distances they travel from farm to table. Heirlooms are, as their name suggests, an older variety of a plant that has been largely knocked off the agricultural playing field. If you’ve ever wondered why heirloom tomatoes often look so ugly, it’s because they pre-date our cultural obsession for fat, uniform—and tasteless—produce.

According to Madhur Jaffery, author of the James Beard Award Winning World Vegetarian cookbook (and one of the fiercest foodies out there): “Chickpeas originated in ancient times, probably in the southern Caucasus region, helping to feed Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Armenia… The early chickpea was probably small and dark, and was eventually bred to be large and pale.”

These chickpeas were not gorgeous, but upon tasting one I was more than willing to overlook trivial things like surface beauty. My friend and I made fresh hummus, which resembled a black bean dip and literally made my night. Check out the recipe below.

Heirloom Hummus

(This recipe is very loosely based on Jaffrey’s “Bead Hummus.” Like a good bubbe’s recipe, the quantities are approximate. Just fuss around with it until it “looks right.”)

• 2 cups chickpeas (black or “kala chana” if you can find them—otherwise Goya will do the trick)
• 4-5 cloves garlic (whole, skins removed)
• 4-5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
• 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 4 sprigs fresh mint
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 3/4 teaspoon salt

Puree the chick peas and garlic cloves in a food processor until roughly chopped. Add all other ingredients and process again until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning, tahini, etc. until you reach the right consistency and flavor.

Image: Shutterstock

The post Chick (pea) it to me appeared first on Jewcy.