The British love affair with hummus

It is the beige dip that launched a thousand picnics, and Britons can't seem to get enough of it. A survey has shown that 41% of us have a pot in the fridge – almost twice as many as any of our European counterparts. We get through £60m worth of the stuff every year. When did this exotic blend of chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice and tahini become a fridge staple?

The history of hummus can be traced back to at least the 13th century, when the first known recipes for it were recorded by Egyptian Arabs. But it is likely to date back much further. "Chickpeas have been around for thousands of years in the Middle East," says Israeli-born chef Yotam Ottolenghi. Some scholars even claim an Old Testament passage indicates that Jews ate hummus in Biblical times.

It is impossible to prove exactly where hummus was first made. "It's obviously somewhere in the eastern crescent around the Mediterranean – the area that includes Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Egypt," says Ottolenghi. "It has become the national dish of many Arab countries, so to call it originally an Arab dish ... I think that's pretty accurate."

With hummus now big business, it is perhaps not surprising that Lebanon and Israel have been engaged in "hummus wars" in the past few years. In 2008, Lebanon attempted – unsuccessfully – to sue Israel for "stealing" hummus. The two nations have both since attempted to break the world record for the largest plate of hummus.

In the 1980s, Waitrose was the first British supermarket to stock hummus, with others following in the 1990s. Chefs such as Ottolenghi, Claudia Roden and Anissa Helou have done much to popularise Middle Eastern foods in the last decade or so, and there is an abundance of recipes for homemade hummus. This may be having an effect: Waitrose's sales of tahini are up 40% year-on-year. But to many, ready-made hummus has become part of the diet with nary a glance to the east. "Hummus is now so mainstream that it is ... viewed as a grocery staple," says a Waitrose spokesperson.

The ways we like to eat it – spread on pittas, a dunking vessel for carrot sticks – are different from its traditional uses in the Middle East. There, "it's often not the kind of spread Brits are used to – kept in the fridge, then spread on bread like mayonnaise," says Ottolenghi. "It's a main dish, often at breakfast or brunch. It is served at room temperature or warm with something on top – olive oil, whole chickpeas, fava beans."

So why do Brits love hummus so much? The perceived health benefits are a factor. "It's filling and sustaining but still has a healthy image, which is justified in many ways because chickpeas have lots of protein and tahini is a much better source of oil than many others. But in all honesty, I think it's mainly the flavour," says Ottolenghi.

Just do yourself a favour and don't eat it straight from the fridge. "Almost always it's eaten too cold," Ottolenghi laments. "It's just not as delicious."