what is hummus?

I have spent the last year eating hummus everyday. That is quite an accomplishment by any human being. Hummus was its own category in the food pyramid for me. I would eat hummus all day long if I could. I would even have it for breakfast. This might sound strange, but actually hummus is considered to be a dish to be eaten in the morning by Arabs.  This can be seen in hummus joints in Israel closing by noon because they run out of it. When I came home from living in Tel Aviv for a year I saw this in my old grocery store in Worcester, Massachusetts:

I had always thought hummus was made exclusively from chick peas pureed with olive oil, tehina, garlic, and other spices. I guess I am wrong now. I guess you can now in the United States take a traditional dish make it with non traditional ingredients and call it by its traditional name. Right next to the yellow lentil, edamame, wasabi edamame, and the black bean hummus was regular hummus. The hummus that I know and love. I understand people trying to be creative while diversifying the food market with interesting ways of making hummus, but can we call something hummus when by definition it is not made with any of the principal ingredients? I do not think we can call it hummus. Linguistically, hummus in both Arabic and Hebrew  means chickpeas. Therefore, hummus must be made with chickpeas. While I do not care if you by these hummus imposters, be aware that you are eating bean dip and not real hummus.

The picture above is from one of my favorite hummus joints in Jaffa called Abu Hassan. They only make their hummus with chickpeas. No yellow lentils, no edamame, and no black beans.