Food historian Nawal Nasrallah says hummus recipes vanish from the record after the 14th century until an 1885 cookbook.
Nasrallah’s observation concerns surviving written recipes, not proof that people stopped eating chickpeas or hummus-like foods. Medieval Arabic cookbooks contain several related preparations, but the documentary trail becomes silent after the 14th century before resurfacing in the late 19th century.
The recipe that reappears in 1885 is found in a Lebanese cookbook by Khaleel Sarkees. By then, the preparation includes the core ingredients associated with modern hummus: chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. That gap helps explain why claims about hummus’s exact origin are difficult to settle.
Nasrallah is a food historian and translator known for researching Arabic and Middle Eastern culinary texts. The statement is sometimes oversimplified as “hummus was invented in 1885,” but that is not what it means: earlier hummus-like recipes clearly exist, while the surviving written record of a recognizable form has a long interruption.