Byblos Market & Deli

All those lovers of Middle Eastern food must have cheered when this little market opened its doors across the street from Bellevue Square. Neat little bins of six kinds of olives, fresh-cut feta cheese from Greece or Bulgaria or France, and slabs of halvah and Turkish delight are all attractively displayed on huge trays. The shelves are lined with Iranian and Middle Eastern spice mixes, tahini, pickles, teas, and fruit syrups. Gyros are prepared to order, although the meat is precooked and microwaved as needed.

Middle Eastern Food
Just across the street from Bellevue Square is a tiny little outpost of the Middle East. Byblos Market & Deli is another example, right in the heart of clean-cut, all-American Bellevue, of our continuing ethnicization. The Microsofties and other high-techers living on the Eastside come from a rainbow of cultures, and they're supporting businesses where they can shop for the familiar foods of home. In the process, they're slowly changing the face of Bellevue.

"Middle East" is a broad and fluid term that means different things to different people. I have chosen to define the markets of the Middle East as those selling the foods of the following countries: Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, and Israel. Most of the businesses profiled here carry foods that are used interchangeably in Middle Eastern as well as Mediterranean cooking. There are, however, big differences in styles of cooking between the countries (see page 294). Only a small number of families of Middle Eastern descent are known to have settled in the Pacific Northwest before 1960. Many Arab men came to the Seattle area with the expansion of the aerospace industry. They were later joined by a large number of students attending area colleges and universities. The civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon caused many families to immigrate here to join their sons. Palestinian families and Iraqi political refugees fleeing the Persian Gulf War have also settled here. The 1990 census estimated the Area population of Washington State (defined as those who said they spoke Arabic in their homes) at about 4,000, and today the total is closer to 10,000.

Most Iranians in the Pacific Northwest can date their arrival to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. With the fall of the Shah of Iran, mar educated middle-class Iranians with American ties relocated to the United States. Most settled on the East Coast or in southern California, but about 10,000 came to the Seattle area. The majority of Iranians live on the Eastside, with smaller numbers in the University District and Queen Anne.

Middle Easterners in the Pacific Northwest tend to be well educated and hold jobs in government or industry, or own their own businesses. Political convulsions in their homelands have brought them here, but unfortunately they sometimes face not-dissimilar conflicts in their adopted land as well. Relations between American and people perceived as being followers of Islam sometimes zigzag up and down depending on war and peace, and economic relation between the United States and the Middle Eastern countries. But Middle Eastern food with its tradition of mezze, boasting small dishes of salads, savory pastries, olives, cheeses, and flat breads, along with the smoke of grilled kebabs and roast lamb, will entice an beguile all your senses no matter what your religion or politics.