Iraqi cuisine persists beneath changing empires
Core techniques, equipment, and dish types in Iraqi cooking have survived from Sumerian and Babylonian times through the Abbasid era to the present, even as rulers, languages, and religions changed. Evidence includes the clay tannur bread oven, whose name echoes the Akkadian tinuru, braised meat stews, and date syrup as a basic sweetener. Domestic practice is a more durable carrier of culture than political institutions.