Pull up a seat for ‘Israeli Cuisine’
Before you say, “Pass the kugel,” you must see “In Search of Israeli Cuisine,” a potent mixture of food history, recipes handed down for thousands of years, politics both modern and biblical, Middle Eastern geography and a charming young host who loves talking about food almost as much as eating it.
Michael Solomonov, who has one foot in the United States and one in Israel, was inspired by the death of his older brother, an Israeli soldier, to open an Israeli restaurant — the award-winning Zahav — in Philadelphia.
But what exactly is Israeli cuisine? Is it wholly Jewish and Israeli? Or is it a mixture of the over 100 countries represented by the citizens of Israel, along with that noodle-based kugel, together with a liberal dollop of usurped foods of the Middle East, including many Palestinian specialties?
You could write a scholarly treatise on hummus alone, it seems, although for me it is probably better just to eat some. In the film you will learn that the Ashkenazi Jews of Western and Eastern Europe brought recipes from such countries as France, Spain, Poland and Ukraine, while the Sephardic Jews of North Africa and the Middle East — Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Uzbekistan and other places — brought cooking techniques indigenous to Africa and the Middle East, which is arguably the more authentic Israeli cuisine.
Most of the chefs Solomonov interviews in the film, including the chic restaurant owner and pioneering Judean chef Rama, but not all, agree that Israeli cuisine must be locally sourced cuisine. Among such delicacies are cheeses aged in a cave used for that purpose for 2,000 years. Because many young Israelis had parents from very different cultures — even Jews and Muslims have intermarried — they have been known to be embarrassed about what they ate at home. But more recently the cultural disparities and adjustments have become a source of pride.
Did you know Moshe Dayan was the father of the cherry tomato? Or that Jews eat a dish called St. Peter’s Fish? In “In Search of Israeli Cuisine,” you will also learn that there is an Israeli wine country and that Israeli olive oil is a national obsession.
For many, food is a means of communing with the dead, especially our departed mothers and grandmothers, as well as more remote ancestors.
Veteran filmmaker Roger M. Sherman has delivered a music-driven, sensuous delight that makes us wish we could also taste and smell what we see and hear. Taking viewers on a tour of the New Jersey-sized Israel, its dry south land and cool mountainous north, our stand-in Solomonov is as enthusiastic as he is knowledgeable and eager to learn. But most of all he is eager to eat. You will be, too.
(“In Search of Israeli Cuisine” contains no objectionable material.)