Tabouli, Tabouleh or Taboli. No matter how you spell it, the meaning is all the same. Tabouleh is a salad made from herbs and mixed with bulgur wheat. Bulgur wheat was used for food in the Middle East 4,000 years ago. The traditional tabouleh salad contains whole grain bulgur wheat, greens in the form of parsley, olive oil, spices, tomatoes and in some recipes cucumber.
Tabouleh salad was a staple of the Lebanese diet and was brought to Oklahoma with the traditions and customs of the Lebanese who came to the Bristow area at the turn of the 20th Century.
Tabouleh is traditionally eaten by scooping up small amounts of it with pieces of romine lettuce. Today most eat the delicacy with a fork or on pita brea.
For more than 40 years two companies packaged Tabouleh in Bristow, Bishop Brothers who packaged tabouleh and Slyman Lebanese Foods. Both Slyman and Bishop have since passed.