One Globe Mom: Let's Talk About Food: Israel!

Ok, so maybe not everyone knows it yet, but I LOVE TO EAT. I’m not a foodie – I don’t believe in all that super-fancy, shooshy food and expensive ingredients because it feels exclusive and I don’t like that. I do like eating foods that are in season and haven’t traveled a million miles to reach me. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t buy Vietnamese fish sauce in NYC’s Chinatown and carry it in a suitcase to Burundi.

I like to cook, and I read cookbooks to relax. Although, as my husband recently pointed out after going through the margin notes in most of our cookbooks, I seem to be allergic to following a recipe exactly. I mean, they’re really just recommendations, right?

In brief my brain is very tuned into food pretty much all the time and especially whenever I travel. I’ll try my best to limit my food ramblings to 1 – 2 entries per country. For now.

So…let’s talk about food in Israel!

I thought Americans pretty much had the corner market on breakfast in a restaurant. Uh, NO. We have the Hungry Man Breakfast (basically 2 of everything on the menu), eggs about 1,700 different ways, and no qualms about eating potatoes under or next to everything, but you sure can’t get feta cheese marinated in pesto with fresh rolls before noon in America.

Besides the fact that I was eating by myself and literally chugging my breakfast because a cab was coming to take me to Ramallah, here’s a photo of what may be my favorite restaurant breakfast every, eaten at the London restaurant, 111 Herbert Samuel Avenue, Tel Aviv (it barely all fits on the table - yeah, baby!):

Yogurt with maple syrup, toasted oatmeal, grapes, apple, pear and some other exotic fruit I didn’t recognize;
4 warm, sesame seed-covered rolls;
A selection of spreads and finger foods: tuna salad, olives, feta marinated in pesto, fromage blanc mixed with olives, and roasted red pepper;
Balkan Eggs Benedict: 3 slices of toast covered with roasted eggplant, 2 poached eggs, and shredded feta cheese with a side of fried potatoes;
A generous bowl of chopped cucumber, tomato and red onion in a lemon and olive oil dressing (known as “Israeli salad” in Israel);
Lemonade
Cappuccino

A little advice for anyone traveling with a friend – split the darn breakfast and then order an ice cream sundae at 10 am, like the smarties at the table next to me!

Food shopping in Israel must be a learned art because I would have bought everything I came across, except that I was carrying a large camera bag and about 20 lbs of baby weight, which meant I wasn’t about to buy anything. But had I wanted to, here’s a small selection of things on my shortlist from the Mehane Yehuda market in Jerusalem: