The emotive power of hummus all over the Middle East cannot be overstated, being the focus of some serious tribal rivalries.
The main producer of chickpeas in the world is India, where with almost 8 million tons more than three times the amount of chickpeas is harvested than in the four following countries together. Other countries in the top five are Australia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Turkey. African countries among the fifteen countries with the biggest yield of chickpeas are Ethiopia, Tanzania and Malawi, and the United States of America and Canada from the Western hemisphere.
While in India, the Middle East and Africa chickpeas are part of the regular diet in any form, in Western countries they became more popular in the form of Hummus (meaning ‘chickpeas’ in Arabic), which is a spread out of chickpeas, Tahini, garlic and olive oil.
