Dolma rice based filling. Egyptians call this main course mahshi (also spelled mashi or mashy). It is stuffed vine leaves but traditionally, cabbage is used in the winter and vine leaves are used in the summer. According to Anthony Khatchaturian, a member of the Armenian community in Kolkata, India, the Bengali dish "potoler dorma" (stuffed gourd) was adapted from meat-stuffed vine leaves. "Mülebbes dolma" is a historic recipe from the Ottoman era. "Halep dolması"—named for Aleppo—is a dish of eggplants stuffed with a meat and rice filling that is flavored with spices and either sour plum flavoring syrup or lemon juice.
The Goat and the Vine The Goat and the Vine The Goat and the Vine is counted as one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 374 in the Perry Index. There is also a West Asian variant. When a goat starts eating a vine's leaves and shoots, the vine retorts that it will still have enough juice left to produce grapes, the wine from which will be poured over it when the goat is sacrificed. The earliest record of the fable is in an epigram by Leonidas of Tarentum, who lived in the area of southern Italy colonised by Greeks in the 3rd century BCE.