What kind of food do they cook in Israel?



Israel is not your typical country and Israel's cuisine is not your typical cuisine. Israel is nation of "olim" (the Hebrew term for Jewish immigrants to Israel)from all over the world, and its wonderous ethnic variety is reflected in its colorful cuisine. There are however, a couple of main categories of Israeli cuisine. We can basically categorize it into Ashkenazi food and Sephardic food. Ashkenazi Jews are those of Eastern and Western European stock, and Sephardic basically refers to "oriental" Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.





One of the common foods from Sephardic lands is of course falafel, which is such a basic part of life in Israel that I even put in the title of this blog! Falafel, in the variety eaten in most Middle Eastern countries including Israel, are bean balls

made of ground chickpeas with spices that are deep fried. They are commonly put into pita bread along with salad and houmos or tehina sauce. It is eaten either as a fast food meal, or as an appetizer in a multicourse meal.



Possibly even more of a staple than even falafel is homous, a bean paste made from

chickpeas, with olive oil or spices on top (commonly zatar, which is a combination