No, actually, I changed my mind. I think I will. Let’s start with a crappy short hand history lesson, shall we? Yes, indeed. If you leave a questionable comment like that, a tedious reply is exactly what you deserve. It all begins in Persia……

Let’s go back…waaaay back, about 25,000 years ago, if you want to get specific. This was about the time that homosapia settled into what was to become the Persian area, before heading into India, China and the East Indies. Science supports that a subset of that self-same branch moved into the Ukraine first before traveling through Europe and into Spain. Eventually they made it into the Islands, by which time the Persian people were well on their way to establishing community.

These island people did well for themselves, and soon the opulent Ionian city states were making trade with Egyptians, Persians and Europeans aplenty. The Persian empire grew and felt that the Ionians were getting too big for their britches. This is where I start to get bored. Empires rose, empires fell, they fought back and forth for hundreds of years until the Macedonians came out of left field and effectively put an end to that.

Alright, so time goes on and Alexander the Great enters the scene. The Greeks conquered Persia and started bringing it home with them in parts and pieces, including their religion/Gods, wares, food products and culinary inspirations. But lo! Just when things were getting good, the Romans conquer the Greeks and ship them all over Europe, effectively allowing Greek culture to enter what is rapidly becoming the start of a melting pot.

Are you tired of this screed yet? Because hey! There’s MORE! Enter the Ottoman empire, who take control in about 700 AD and wrap a clay fist around all of these burgeoning nations. And hey, you know what Southern Persia had that the Ottomans had a jolly good time carrying around with them? RICE! That’s just like magic, isn’t it?

Look, “Greek”, to say that stuffing vine leaves was an invention of the Greeks is just about as silly as fighting over the authenticity of pasta. Is the true heart of pasta Italian or Asian? It doesn’t really matter, because comparing Shanghai noodles to Penne Arrabiata is, frankly, rather ridiculous. For my part, I’m just glad that pasta made it halfway around the world so I could enjoy Lebanese rice with vermicelli noodles as much as I like Greek Pasticcio.

It feels silly to say that a dish is exclusively Greek, Persian, Turkish or Middle Eastern when you think about the thousands of years of trade, export, invasion and cultural adaptation. We also need to factor in the accessibility of food products. People ate what they could. Are vine leaves edible? Awesome! More, please. It has been suggested that in Greece and the Middle East vine leaves were stuffed with figs, fruit and nuts, and eaten daily. The Turks took a look at this, realized the Power of Rice, and started developing a laboriously hand-rolled snack as victuals for the elite. Soon enough meshi/warak dawali (Middle Eastern), dolmades/dolmadakia/dolmathes (Greek), dolmas/dolma (Persian, Armenian, Syrian) took flight. Every region makes theirs a little bit different. Every household does as well. It’s the variation and flexibility that we find in foods such as this which is marvelous and intriguing.

We feed off of one another, and we fuse our culinary preferences according to what happens to be both attainable and delicious. We learn from one another, the way we always have, and we’re influenced by the cultures we surround ourselves with. This is not something to be reviled, it’s something to be celebrated.

So, “Greek”, I agree with you in many ways. In Greece there are many variations on stuffed vine leaf rolls. In the Middle East, there are also many variations on stuffed vine leaf rolls. Trying to identify the specific point in time when a dish originated is haphazard at best and ridiculous at worst. I also agree that the Arabs DID make it their own, just like the Greeks made it their own, and so on and so forth.

But really, I still think we should both be saying “Thank you” to the Persians. Just a thought.

If you can’t make friends with someone who has a grapevine in their backyard (I like to steal the leaves from my parents’ house in the summer/fall when I remember!) absolutely go for the jarred. That’s what I’ve used here and I do like them except that the brine can be a bit overpowering sometimes (salty and sour) so you really need to rinse them well. THe brand I usually buy from is Cedars because it’s the easiest for me to find. What you want to look for in the jars is anything that would indicate salt content! As an aside, I’ve bought vacuum packed parcels of vine leaves before (can’t remember if they were in the freezer section or just on the racks) and I think the company was Cedars. THey were great! A little bit less salt/flavor in the brine they sat in, possibly because it was so minimal.

Good luck and happy hunting!!