While discussions of Israeli cuisine as a distinct cultural field are relatively new, the cuisine already proliferates in media, food service, and industrial production. In content, it reflects influences from a variety of global sources. This article argues that Israeli cuisine arose through the application of Zionist historical intelligibility to diasporic and indigenous Arab cuisines. The result is a cuisine that embodies the characteristic, teleological “ingathering of exiles” to appropriate diasporic culinary traditions. This process characterizes Israel's hegemonic control of the means of narration and the production of a superfluous diasporic Jewish and indigenous Arab population.

The state of Israel has been involved in a long-standing violent conflict with its Arab neighbors, yet Jews and Arabs share a culinary passion: hummus. This humble dip of mashed chickpeas seasoned with tahini and lemon juice is ubiquitous in Middle Eastern public and private culinary spheres and is extremely popular among Arabs and Israeli Jews and, as of recently, among Western consumers lured by the health qualities of the “Mediterranean diet” and by the exotic nature of the dish itself. In 2008, hummus became the subject of a heated debate between Israel and Lebanon that revolved around cultural copyrights, culinary heritage, and economic revenues. In this article I return to the so-called Hummus Wars, a series of culinary undertakings performed in Lebanon and Israel in an attempt to claim ownership over hummus by setting a Guinness World Record for the largest hummus dish. I focus on one of these events, which attracted substantial attention in Israel and beyond: the breaking of the Guinness record at the Palestinian-Israeli village of Abu Gosh. In my analysis of this event I highlight two aspects of the “Hummus Wars” that are of specific interest to food scholars. First, I argue that food metaphors acquire a life of their own and may express unexpected meanings. Second, I point to the unexpected role of mediator undertaken by Palestinians of Israeli citizenship in this event. I suggest that a process of what I term “gastromediation” was taking place in Abu Gosh, in which the smooth oily paste was intended to serve as a material and social lubricant for the Israeli-Arab-Jewish-Palestinian conflict.

This research brief explores the controversial history of the cherry tomato and analyzes its role in the construction of Israel's national identity. Since 2003, mentions of Israel having “invented” the cherry tomato have appeared in both Israeli and international media. However, such claims have sparked outrage on various blogs and websites, and questions have been raised about the veracity of Israel's claims—as well as about the true origin of the cherry tomato. I explore the history of the cherry tomato, tracing mentions of it from the Renaissance period to modern times. In addition, I clarify the assertions of Israeli scientists credited with the development of the cherry tomato—that their research transformed the cherry tomato into a commodity in the 1980s. Finally, I discuss the cherry tomato claim in light of the Israeli government's hasbara (Hebrew for “explanation”) efforts, which attempt to counter negative images of Israel in the international press. While much previous scholarship on food and nationalism has focused on the relationship between the cultivation, preparation, or consumption of a food and the construction of a national identity, the present work focuses on the relationship between the food's invention narrative and national identity. By transforming the cherry tomato into an embodiment of technological innovation, I argue that hasbara separates the cherry tomato from its essence as a food and co-opts it into a symbol of modernity and progress.

Analyzing the Israeli-Lebanese hummus wars, this article argues that both the competition to make the largest plate of hummus in the world and the Lebanese effort to trademark the term “hummus” within the European Union are attempts to legalize and concretize the concept of authenticity, which takes on increasing significance under the pressures of globalization and anxiety over homogenization. In addition it argues that “authenticity” is not determined by static tradition or heritage, but rather by practice. Hummus, therefore, is Israeli so long as it is consumed and understood as such by the Israeli population.

Israeli-Tunisian artist Rafram Chaddad traveled to Libya in March 2010 to photograph the synagogues and cemeteries of Libya's vanished 2,500-year-old Jewish community. Libyan secret police arrested him and accused him of spying for Israel. Chaddad withstood electrocution, ten days with no sleep, and savage beatings with a lead pipe before spending months alone in a tiny cell. He was released five months later through back-channel negotiations. Today, what he remembers most is every dish his wardens served him, from cinnamon-stewed camel to stuffed tripe served over turmeric-saturated rice. His prison term sheds light on the brutality and curious generosity of jail under the deposed Muammar Qaddafi. Chaddad's survival strategy revolved around food. Three times a day Chaddad would ask the prison guards for cooking advice as they delivered hot-foil meal trays to his cell. He marked time with tinfoil squares he ripped off the wrapping of grilled chicken. And he rejoiced in the small details of the food, such as dill on macaroni or dried mint in sorba , a tomato, meat, and lentil stew. In Chaddad's case, being a bon vivant was the best defense when all he had was a rotting gray mattress in a tiny room.

After becoming disillusioned with the shortcomings of his medium, Israeli artist Barry Frydlender gave up on photography in the early nineties. Following a hiatus, he became one of the first to utilize breakthroughs in digital technology. Embracing the inability of conventional photography to convey a true story or a whole reality, Frydlender began to create his own. Pitzutziya , a work from 2002, depicts a small Tel Aviv convenience store, stocked with everything from local seeds and nuts to imported packaged food and liquor. By photographing the scene piece by piece over a period of time and later digitally composing a large seamless whole, Frydlender transforms the everyday into the essential. The myriad products and the two young women appearing in the picture, create an allegorical history of the state of Israel, addressing issues of ethnicity, demographics, and economics.