You're in a foreign country and a word jumps out at you from the storefront of a restaurant. "tabbouleh." Your heart swells a little.

To many of us, tabbouleh means home. Tabbouleh means watching mama kneading pools of parsley, and it's an ultimate labor of love. Tabbouleh is also an opportunity for us to lecture non-Arabs about something that is "not-just-a-salad but an art form;" and it doesn't matter that we just noticed their eyes glazing over a little.

Here are seven reasons why we love tabbouleh.