Kuwaiti cuisine is very important to the culture of Kuwait. The national dish of Kuwait known as machboos (Arabic: مكبوس‎) consists mainly of mutton, chicken or fish placed over or mixed in a large mass of well-cooked and prepared rice. Food is almost always prepared and served in large amounts, and it is extremely common for households to invite guests over to share meals. Kuwaiti cuisine is an infusion of Indian, Persian, Mediterranean, and Najdi (the center of the Arabian peninsula) cuisines.

Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait ⁱ/kuːˈweɪt/ (Arabic: دولة الكويت‎, Dawlat al-Kuwayt) is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the Arabic أكوات ākwāt, the plural of كوت kūt, meaning a fortress built near water. The country covers an area of 17,820 square kilometers (6,880 sq mi) and has a population of about 3.5 million.

Historically, the region was the site of Characene, a major Parthian port for trade between Mesopotamia and India. The Bani Utbah tribe were the first permanent Arab settlers in the region, and laid the foundation of the modern emirate. By the 19th century, Kuwait came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire, and after World War I, it emerged as an independent sheikhdom under the protection of the British Empire. Kuwait's large oil fields were discovered in the late 1930s.