Guest fare
When you arrive in the Promised Land, the first thing that captivates you is the numerous holy sites, and of completely different religions. The second thing that usually attracts is Israel's springs, providing a true tourist paradise: the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean, the Red... And the third is the distinctive Eastern cuisine. Though here each has their own view: for many, this third thing comes first.
Israelis have long understood that the way to the heart of a person of any nationality, skin color and place of residence lies through the stomach. That is why they feed dear guests in Israel gloriously. For example, you should never order a salad on a full stomach. The dish you are served will evoke an association with a cornucopia. It will contain all vegetables that exist in nature: cabbage, carrots, sweet corn, red pepper, onions, as well as nuts, cheese, olives, eggs, mayonnaise, and all this will be garnished with parsley and drizzled with olive oil. Fresh bread with butter is always served with the salad, and sometimes even steaming baked potatoes. Seeing this dish for the first time, a guest usually says in confusion: "What is this? I was expecting a few leaves of greens..."
Similar things happen in Israeli homes. Here you can always find something to chew and munch on. This food is usually called "guest fare." There is not a single Israeli pantry that does not stock roasted sunflower seeds, almonds, dried bananas, figs, papaya, salted bagels, pretzels, fresh dates, potato chips, etc.
When an unexpected guest appears on the threshold, all these delightful means to keep the jaws occupied appear on the table, plus at least three kinds of juices, jugs of ice water with lemon and mint leaves, as well as a bowl of seasonal fruits: peaches, watermelon, melon, white and red grapes, apricots, mango. As soon as all this is finished, the hosts will announce to the guests that dinner is ready, to which everyone at the table rejoices loudly: finally they can have a little refreshment.
And all would be well, but when Israelis go abroad even for a short time, they miss the familiar food that cannot be found anywhere except Israel: hummus and tahini (ground sesame seeds with olive oil, parsley and salt); then there is also Cafe-Ellite, an old-fashioned brand of instant coffee despised by coffee snobs and adored by Israelis; after it comes Bamba, a yellow-colored chewing gum made from peanut butter and corn, which babies love to chew when they are teething; and finally, a whole set of crunchy things like roasted sunflower seeds, nuts, etc.
National treasure
Undoubtedly, everyone who arrives in Israel will sooner or later want to try the national dish. But here there is a problem that has long faced the young state: what to declare as the national dish. For centuries, the Jewish diaspora around the world produced countless recipes, but all of them can be attributed to other peoples. However, every time another group of immigrants arrived in Israel bringing their own cuisine, a "battle of dishes" began, often yielding delightful gastronomic results.
For a while it seemed that a typically Jewish dish such as cholent could take the place of the national dish. Accepted by all Jews universally (in North Africa just as in Eastern Europe), it is a savory stew of meat and beans that is allowed to simmer on Friday and eaten on Saturday. But perhaps because along with its aroma, this dish carried to the shores of Israel a certain aftertaste of the suffering of the Jewish diaspora, it ceded the leading place to the abundant and young dish falafel, practical and fitting the lifestyle of modern Israel.
Falafel is a whole art, it is a dish that every tourist will undoubtedly try, and you can try it both in a restaurant and on the street. By origin this dish is Arabic, but in fact no single nation can claim rights to it. Egyptians, for example, mashed beans, made balls from them, added spices, and then thoroughly fried the balls in boiling vegetable oil.
On the territory now occupied by Israel, local Arabs did the same with peas. Then the hot and aromatic falafel balls were inserted into special Arab pocket bread flatbreads, pea paste, salads and spices were also put there. What resulted was tasty, nutritious and inexpensive. Israelis immediately adopted this experience. And who in their right mind would not do so? Even in times of Arab-Israeli clashes, falafel is willingly chewed on both sides of the border, after which spots of pea paste remain on the satisfied faces of the adversaries. Of course, many Israelis still prepare cholent for Saturday, but on weekdays falafel wins anyway.
To be continued.