Falafel Nation

Falafel Nation

When people discuss food in Israel, their debates ask politically charged questions: Who has the right to falafel? Whose hummus is better? But Yael Raviv’s Falafel Nation moves beyond the simply territorial to divulge the role food plays in the Jewish nation. She ponders the power struggles, moral dilemmas, and religious and ideological affiliations of the different ethnic groups that make up the “Jewish State” and how they relate to the gastronomy of the region. How do we interpret the recent upsurge in the Israeli culinary scene—the transition from ideological asceticism to the current deluge of fine restaurants, gourmet stores, and related publications and media? Focusing on the period between the 1905 immigration wave and the Six-Day War in 1967, Raviv explores foodways from the field, factory, market, and kitchen to the table. She incorporates the role of women, ethnic groups, and different generations into the story of Zionism and offers new assertions from a secular-foodie perspective on the relationship between Jewish religion and Jewish nationalism. A study of the changes in food practices and in attitudes toward food and cooking, Falafel Nation explains how the change in the relationship between Israelis and their food mirrors the search for a definition of modern Jewish nationalism.

The Israeli Career of Hummus

How did an Arab dish become an Israeli culinary passion? Less than a century ago, hummus and other Palestinian staples were often met with disinterest and sometimes outright rejection among Zionist settlers. Yet for modern-day Israelis, hummus has become a dish that is both everyday and iconic, intertwined with cultural perceptions of authenticity, indigeneity, and masculinity. The Israeli Career of Hummus tracks how hummus has turned from an "Arab" or "Oriental" food into a national symbol and culinary cult in Israel. The Israeli Career of Hummus traces how hummus has turned from an "Arab" or "Oriental" food into a national symbol and culinary cult in Israel. Rather than regard culinary appropriation as a necessary outcome of land colonization, author Dafna Hirsch instead examines how changing gastronomic, economic, and political factors intersected with material and cultural production in a multilayered and socially stratified colonial context. Departing from the thesis of cultural erasure of hummus's Arab or Palestinian provenance, Hirsch shows how the Arab identity of hummus functions as a semiotic resource, which is sometimes suppressed and at other times leveraged to lend authenticity to hummus—and thus to its consumers. Shedding new light on the sociohistorical process of culinary appropriation amidst settler colonialism and nation building, The Israeli Career of Hummus invites readers to consider the complex trajectory and multiple factors and mediators that transformed a humble staple into an emotionally charged and politically contested culinary icon.

The Nation