Booza

'ice cream') is a frozen dairy dessert originally from the Levant made with milk, cream, sugar, mastic and sahlab (orchid flour), giving it its distinguished stretchy and chewy texture—much like dondurma.

Booza origins dates back to at least 1500 AD in the region of Syria and is sometimes referred to as the "first ice cream in the world".

Booza is traditionally made through a process of pounding[1] and stretching in a freezer drum, instead of the more usual churning method used in other ice creams, leading to a creamy yet dense texture.

[6] A brother and sister team (Jilbert El-Zmetr and Tedy Altree-Williams) pioneered and created the first packaged version of booza in Australia in 2011.

Using local ingredients together with sahlab and mastic (from the island of Chios, Greece), they recreated the traditional form of booza and packaged this in a take-home format available to consumers.

A dish of booza topped with pistachios served at the Bakdash ice cream shop in Damascus