Israeli Food
Israeli food is fusion cuisine at its finest. If you’re expecting traditional Jewish foods when you come to Israel, you’re in for a surprise.
Israel is blessed with outstanding produce and this is evident in Israeli cuisine. Although this is a tiny country, almost anything will grow here. A big advantage to the country’s small size is that produce isn’t shipped long distances and refrigerated for months – fruits and vegetables are fresh and in season. Yes, this means there isn’t an orange to be found in August, but when citrus fruits come to market after the first winter rains, they are that much more exciting – and unbelievably flavorful. Try a tomato or a carrot and you’ll be amazed at the intense color and taste. (In fact, Israeli produce is a major export and finds its way into Europe’s high-end food stores.)
A walk through Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s open air produce market, is a sensual delight at any time of year. You’ll find vats of olives of every color, white cheeses of every variety, and counters of sunflower seeds and nuts.
In September, pomegranates ripen and grow bigger than grapefruit. Strawberries glow deeply red February and grapes and watermelon come with the summer months. This is why fresh, seasonal produce is such a staple of Israeli cuisine, both in vegetable salads and fruit salads. You’ll see Israelis munching into luscious red peppers as often as in apples. Freshly juiced green apples, carrots and almonds make a popular drink available at many refreshment kiosks in Jerusalem. Israeli food is also influenced heavily by geography and so it has a marked Middle Eastern flavor. Pita bread is baked daily here as it is elsewhere in this part of the world. Tabouleh is as much an Israeli standard as a Lebanese one. Israel is a Mediterranean country and it shows in popular foods like shawarma and the gyros sandwich. Arabic influences too abound, as you’ll taste in the many ways of preparing lamb shanks, and the ubiquitous hummus and tehina. But Israeli food is also formed by Jewish history and bears the traces of every country in which Jews have made their homes in the Diaspora. The result: fusion Jewish cuisine of the highest order. This medley of cross-cultural flavors has resulted in some dishes that are uniquely Israeli – for example, the falafel sandwich - while others are Israeli variants of Mediterranean standards, like the typical Israeli salad without which no meal is complete.
Yemenite Jews brought with them srug, a fiery blend of chilies and spices that comes in two colors – red and green. The green is due to chopped cilantro. Try it on your falafel, if you dare. (Not recommended for the faint of heart or stomach!) Moroccan specialties like Jewish variations of couscous also found their way into the mainstream Israeli food repertoire. Then there are those peculiar Jerusalem delicacies that are the result of historical exigency – long years of near famine at the turn of the 19th century forced people to make do with what they had and create such odd concoctions as the jerusalem kugel (yerushalmi kugel), made in honor of weddings, bar mitzvahs and other celebrations - a peppery, caramelized noodle pudding, invariably served with half a sour pickle. Israel cuisine has a sweet tooth, too. You can find every possible kind of halva, a sesame-seed based confection, and counters and counters of that perennial Jewish food - sweet, sticky rugelach. If these are too heavy for you, try a rose-water infused malabi pudding instead. Or be truly Israeli and snack on sunflower seeds from a paper bag.
Whatever your culinary tastes, sweet or spicy, you’ll find much to delight in and explore.
|
