Falafel Was Almost Certainly Egyptian, Made With Fava Beans, and the Chickpea Came Later

Falafel is one of the few foods that is simultaneously everywhere and constantly misunderstood. It is sold in Cairo, Beirut, Berlin, London and New York, it is the default answer to what a vegetarian eats in a Middle Eastern restaurant, and almost nobody outside the region can say what is actually in it.

The short answer is a ground pulse, herbs and spices, shaped and deep fried. The longer answer involves two different pulses, two different countries, and a dispute that is not really about food.

What is falafel made of?

Ground pulses, never cooked ones, which is the detail that decides whether it works.

Dried chickpeas or fava beans are soaked overnight until they swell, then ground raw with onion, garlic, parsley, coriander leaf and spices, typically cumin and coriander seed. The mixture is shaped into balls or patties and deep fried.

The soaked-but-uncooked part is not a stylistic choice. It is the whole technique. Raw soaked pulses hold together through the starch and protein released by grinding, and they dry out into a light, crumbly interior. Tinned chickpeas, which are already cooked, carry far too much water: they will not bind, and they turn to paste in the fryer. Nearly every failed home attempt traces to that single substitution, which is why our falafel recipe starts from dried.

Where does falafel come from?

Egypt, on the most widely accepted account, though the dating is genuinely uncertain.

The common claim is that it emerged in Egypt roughly a thousand years ago, often associated with Egyptian Copts. Competing accounts push it considerably earlier, and one theory traces the idea to the Indian subcontinent, which has its own long history of fried chickpea preparations. Anyone stating a precise date and inventor is going beyond the evidence.

What is better established is the direction of travel. From Egypt the dish moved into the Levant, and it is there that the pulse changed.

Fava beans or chickpeas?

Both, geographically split, and the split is the clearest fingerprint of the dish's route.

Egypt makes it with fava beans and calls it ta'ameya. It is typically a deeper green inside, softer, and heavier on herbs. That is the older form.

The Levant, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan, makes it with chickpeas, or sometimes a mix of the two. That is the version that spread globally and the one most people picture when they hear the word.