Lebanon Sues Israel Over Falafel Rights
In a move that may or may not threaten the Middle Eastern peace process, Lebanon is planning to sue Israel in Trade Court over Israel's proprietary Arab food claims:
According to a report by the Deutsche Presse Agentur, Germany's news agency, a Lebanese trade union is planning to sue Israel for claiming that the Jewish state has propriety over traditional Arab cuisine such as falafel, tabbouleh and hummus, which Lebanese consider their own.
All right, if Lebanon is going to sue Israel for falafel copyright infringement, my imagination runs wild at the thought of other countries getting into the food copyright business. After the jump, my list of domestic and international food lawsuits waiting to happen.
Italy sues the United States over pizza.
Germany sues the United States over hamburgers.
Belgium sues France over frites.
Boston sues New York City over chowdah.
Kansas City sues New York City over strip steak.
Come on, serious eaters, let's put together a regional food lawsuit meme. We wanna hear what you got.
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9 Comments:
China sues Italy over spaghetti
orangeobsession at 3:47PM on 10/10/08
@orangeobsession,
you beat me to it.
China sues England for tea
Japan sues Italy for crudo/sushi
Native Americans sues the entire world for corn and the corn refineries of america for butchering that shizzle.
foodinmouth at 4:38PM on 10/10/08
India sues Trader Joe's for frozen naan.
IbisFlight at 1:51AM on 10/11/08
Mexico sues Taco Bell, Taco Bueno, Taco Mayo, etc. for putting "Mexican" on their menus.
holdthemayo at 2:07PM on 10/11/08
This is GREAT.
-Peru sues Ireland over potatoes.
-The United States of America sues Italy over tomatoes.
-Egypt sues Germany over beer.
Susquehanna at 2:58PM on 10/11/08
Actually, I remember hearing a few years back about how Korea was getting pissed that Japan tried to submit kimchi as a national recipe or something along those lines... more info on that here:
http://www.american.edu/TED/kimchi.htm
Emily Koh at 5:53PM on 10/11/08
I'm not surprised they're taking it to court...
Every few years around Passover, some professor in Egypt sues Israel for damages and theft incurred during the 10 Plagues and during the Exodus... something about the labor lost and how the Hebrews stole the gold and jewels and... who knows.
You guys ran an article back in August (http://tinyurl.com/3qcb2f) about the Al Jazeera vodcast they do on street food around the world. This one was about Jerusalem and the tone was definitely "the Zionist entity has subjugated even the falafel from the Arabs".
Kmelion at 1:31AM on 10/12/08
strange enough (or maybe not), nobody ever introduces falafel, tabbouleh, or hummus to me as israeli dishes. i think i just get the standard "here, have some middle eastern food".
mikeismora at 11:22AM on 10/13/08
you guys are such JERKS...If this was Israel suing, you wouldn't be talking. At least the U.S. ADMITS where the food comes from: ex: chinese food is CHINESE, hamburgers are GERMAN...we don't necessarily label them as "American food"...I'm pretty sure all Americans know where the food they eat comes from. Who doesn't know that pizza is Italian and that it was INTRODUCED by Italian immigrants?
The article really introduced some stupid logic.
lebeg123 at 1:36PM on 09/20/09