When I was a young whipper-snapper of a hipster, and I was always hanging out in Seattle, there was a place called Aladdin's on The Ave in the University of Washington District. (Now, if you're not a local, you won't know that The Ave is actually officially called University Way, not University Avenue. It's anyone's best guess why it's called The Ave.) Aladdin's had really great Mediterranean food, and my go-to was falafel sandwiches with tzatziki. So good. Mmmmm.
Going even farther back, into the misty, water-colored memory windmills of my mind, when I was a kid in Sweden, our mom had a recipe which she occasionally made, and at the time we referred to this recipe as "ärtbullar" (or pea-balls) from an authentic Mediterranean recipe of chickpeas. I'm not sure if the recipe just called them ärtbullar or if we just were too ignorant to call it Falafel.
