THE HISTORY OF LEBANON

The popular cuisines in the middle east date back to ancient times where they were known and combined by the three main cultures such as the syrian egyptian palestinian and henceforth  as the levantine cuisines. Lebanese food had actually originated from syrian cuisines and syria was the origin influence of the lebanese region where the foods were referred to as shami food a name translated in arabic as Damascus a popular place in syria.

Most of the lebanese foods date back thousands of years throughout ancient times where they were popular among the phoenicians and Romans.
The influence of foreign powers was the turning point in how lebanese food was made with the rise of the ottoman empire which occurred between 1516-1918 the empire brought along changes to how lebanese ate their food.

The Turkish Ottoman empire was defeated in 1914-1918 by the french when France took over lebanon.
In 1943 during lebanons independence french cuisines became introduced such as the famous croissants and their caramel desserts such as flan a 16th century dessert.