Frying was rare in the ancient Middle East because oil was costly

Evidence

We know from antiquity of two places for preparing food. One is the oven, called tannur, a word that goes back to Assyro-Babylonian antiquity. It was used for baking bread and also for baking pies. The other is the hearth, in Arabic mus­ tawqad, where a fire was made in one way or another for boiling, stewing, grilling, and sometimes frying, though that seems to have been comparatively rare, no doubt because of the high cost of oil. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 262

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the oil-economics thread in Milgrom’s trade-institution work and any history-of-cuisine material.