A friend of mine brought up the subject of kunafa a few months ago.� I didn't know anything about it.

Tomorrow, we're having a pan-Mediterranean meze.� I'm making a Georgian (okay, the Mediterranean thing is a pretty loose definition) walnut raisin torte (like a baklava with cookie dough and raisins) but I thought I might need something to go with it. As I was grocery shopping in Dearborn last night (I still haven't found a decent grocery store in Southfield), I came across kunafa powder. Obviously, it was a sign.�

I researched kunafa a little this morning.� For some reason, I had thought it was frozen (maybe I mixed it up with kulfi in my mind).� It is shreds of crunchy dough that are fried and then topped with a soft, white cheese.� It used to be incredibly hard to make (and therefore it was extremely pricey) but the industrial revolution came to kunafa-land and it is all done by machine now.� The powder is used to color (red) and flavor the pastry.�

I decided to go straight to the source to try kunafa for the first time.� What sparked my friend's curiosity in the first place, is a building that claims to be "home of kunafa".� Obviously, that was the place to go.� The parking lot was completely full, so I beached the Focus on a snow pile.� I figured it couldn't possibly take too long to procure a little kunafa, so what harm could it do?� They did indeed have plenty of kunafa, I decided to get burma, which is rolled kunafa.� Home of kunafa also exists online, plus they have mail order service.� They spread the joy of kunafa from coast to coast.

There is a big advantage to ordering online because I nearly died pulling out of the parking lot.� It's just not on a good site for visibility.� I got an extra kunafa to try on the way to the next Lebanese bakery.� It was pretty darn good.� It got me thinking about the difference between Indian and Arabic desserts.� On the whole, I don't care for Indian desserts but I really like Arabic ones.� There is some overlap between them.� The Indians have jelebi and gulab jammun, the Arabs have meshabek and awameh which are the exact same thing.�

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jelebi/meshabek��������������������� gulab jammun/awameh

I find most Indian desserts to be tooth-achingly sweet.� That's why I don't like them.� I think what I like about baklava in all it's many forms is the sweet and salty combination made by the inclusion of nuts.� There are plenty of nuts in India (they don't all work with me) but there doesn't seem to be many in their desserts.� I work with a guy who has a degree in Sanskrit and makes Indian history a hobby. He tells me that there are some kinds of barfi that use ground nuts, plus halvah is eaten across the subcontinent but there aren't any desserts that he can think of the use whole nuts.�� Disgusted, I told him that (plus the complete lack of chocolate desserts) was what was wrong with his people and I stormed out.

Did you know that the average Palestinian male eats a kilogram of kunafa a year?