Every family has their Yom Kippur fast-breaking tradition, and ours involves a spread of bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, pickled herring, etc. This is a nod to the tradition that I grew up with in the United States, and homage to my grandfather, who was in the deli business, and whose dining room table never … Read More »
galilee
Fig Season in the Western Galilee
I spent last weekend doing research for my book in the Western Galilee – an area of tremendous natural beauty which is quite off the tourism track, with villages that have long and illustrious histories yet are still relatively isolated from mainstream Israeli life. The foodways I was fortunate enough to encounter during this trip … Read More »
Pure Gold
One Friday morning a few weeks ago, I arrived at Kfar Manda for my weekly Arabic lesson, and as I climbed the stairs to my teacher, Malek’s apartment, on the porch/roof I noticed piles of wheat laid out on a canvas drying in the sun (where was my camera when I needed it?). Um Malek … Read More »
A Circassian Find
The Circassian community in Israel is very small and not well known. Originally from a mountainous region in the Caucuses near the Black Sea, they were brutally driven out of their land by the Russians in the 19th century, then embraced by the Ottoman Turks, who settled them throughout their empire. The men were famed … Read More »
I’ll Have Mine Baladi
For those who are interested in fresh local produce, “baladi” is the term for vegetables that are not raised industrially in greenhouses, but are grown in the old, traditional way. The word comes from “balad” which in Arabic means village. Baladi vegetables can usually be found in the produce markets in Arab villages and are … Read More »