recipes for chicken soup
>>susan: i'd like to welcome janna gur tocome to our authors@google talk and i'm personally, really thrilled to have janna gur here sincei'm a big fan and a big supporter of her cuisine and her cookbook, which i, which i own andwhich i think has many incredible recipes. so, i was excited to have her here. and oneof the reasons i thought it was great and such a good fit was because google, as allof you know, as foodies we have a tradition at google of having really incredible food.and there's a lot of appreciation for good food at google. and we also have a whole group,for example, we have koogle at google, which is an alias that is the google community thatcelebrates passover and gets together and does a meal. but, janna gur has a very impressivebackground, which i'd like to share.
she's the founder and editor-in-chief of theisraeli food magazine, "al hashulhan," did i say that right? she'll correct, she'll probablysay it correctly afterwards. she's published 28 books, and everyone should get them all. [susan laughs] in hebrew and in english. no, actually justone. i, i can't read hebrew, including her first book, "the new book of israeli food:a culinary journey." and we have copies of those books for sale and they're in the back,and with that i'd like to have janna come up and introduce, start giving us some backgroundon her perspective. thank you. [applause]
>janna: hi, good afternoon. it's really excitingand it's a great honor to be there. as a google user, google is part of our lives, every day,every moment almost, we're googling something and to be actually here to speak to you andi know there are many other people somewhere in the offices, hopefully listening to me,but we, they won't be able to have the cookies, by the way. we're gonna cookies later. onlythose who are actually here, so some people that are hiding in the rooms, they're welcometo join us. ok, thank you, susan, for such warm introduction.it's, my task is for next hour to try to explain to you what israeli food really is. and its,it's a simple question, it's tricky answer because it's food and cuisine in the making,changing all the time, really finding it itself
all the time and since we're foodies here,i hope, mostly the people who are listening in, i decided to do it not through history,not through long and theoretical discourse, but through 12 dishes and ingredients. so,it's gonna be the story of israeli food in 12 dishes. and the first one, sorry, i have to, waita second. i forgot that i'm not, read my password again. password, of course, taking up valuablegoogle time. visitor's effect is what it's called, of course.of course another glitch. ok. thank god, could be really embarrassing.
[janna laughs] ok, so here we have our first, the first thingyou actually think about when you say "israeli food," you think about falafel. so, i haveit here, proudly on the screen, but it's not gonna be part of our israeli dozen for a simplereason because everybody more or less knows what it is. "oh, you're going to israel, you'regonna have a lot of falafel." so, sure there is falafel. it's a very popular street snackin israel, but i think it's about time we learned about other things which are israelifood and let's move to our next member of the family, actually the first one. and it's much, much less known. and it's very,very ancient. and actually, i'd like to start
here because it takes us all the way backto the biblical times. and, you know, israel is a very young country, 62 years old and,but we do have very ancient history it goes all the way, thousands years ago. and thisproduct is, has actually very fascinating story. it's called "freeki" in arabic, modernday arabic, but it also appears in the bible. if you are familiar with celebrating the holidayof shavu'ot, the holiday of weeks, in three weeks, and there is a very famous love storybetween boaz and ruth. this poor widow from, from moab, and wealthy, older man and theyfall in love and they get married and they become great-grandparents of king david. and they're seduction scene is actually apicnic; he's feeding her and he's feeding
her, in hebrew, we say "savatla mea kehli",any israeli's here in the audience? ok, you remember it's "savatla mea kehli"? pinchedher from the kehli. kehli, in modern day hebrew means "a toast," but obviously boaz didn'thave a toaster in the field, so it should be something else. it should've been somethingelse, it's something that we, we call in hebrew also "karrmel" and it means green, cracked,toasted wheat. ok? so, why green toasted wheat? because, in the ancient times, we have thisvery, very extreme heat waves in israel during springtime and the farmers were afraid thatthe harvest will be ruined, will burn out. so, they harvested some of the wheat early,toasted it so it wouldn't spoil, cracked it, and used it for Cooking, Recipes, toasted it. so, it'sa little bit like bulgur wheat, but it's green
wheat. and it's extremely, extremely, flavorful.it has some very interesting smoky flavor. it's popular in arabic and jewish cuisine.actually, it's a very ancient product that survived thousands of years and remained inarabic cuisine. and israeli chefs just fell in love with it lately and it became one ofthe trendiest dishes on israeli restaurant menus. so, this shows the continuation oftradition from the bible all the way to the modern age and here, i think, we have -- [pause] ok, here we go. this is actually boaz andruth in the garden. and this is freeki pilaf, made from one of our later, latest israelicookbooks, very flavorful. i think you can
get it in the states as well, it's calledgreen wheat and this is the first member of my israeli dozen. and let's move on to thenext one. we're still in the biblical times, and anyideas what is this beautiful fruit or vegetable, anybody? dates. that's right. usually, i hopepeople will say "olives" or "grapes," but these are dates. dates are one of the symbolsof ancient israel. they are a member of the seven species; the seven fruits and vegetableswith which the land of israel is blessed. you all know the expression, "the land ofmilk and honey." ok, now, the theory is that the honey in the milk and honey is not bee'shoney, but date honey. date molasses, actually, and it's, it wasa very important sweetener in the ancient
times. israel was covered with date growthsthat looked something like that. ok, this is the harvest. the same dates we've justseen, the red ones, that's the way they look on the tree. so, as i was saying, the datehoney, the honey in the land of milk and honey, is actually date honey, and that's what itlooks like. you can see it's brown, it's sweet, it's less sweet than actual honey and it'ssort of caramel flavored. and, again, it comes originally from iraq, from iraqi jews werethe ones who brought it to israel because you all know that israel is actually immigrantsocieties, with people coming from all over the world, each one bringing their own foodtraditions. so, the date honey, or as we call it in hebrew,"silan," actually arrived with iraqi jews
and today, well, you know bee producers, honeyproducers in israel really have a problem because silan is winning, becoming more popularthan actual honey. it's cheaper to produce, it's less sweet, it's, and it's very, verytrendy. so, i think in the states you can find it maybe in middle eastern shops or instores that carry israeli produce. you should try it, it's great for glazing. it's actuallya little bit thinner, a little bit less sweet, but it goes, again, all the way back to biblicaltradition and yet another ingredient that comprises what we now call israeli cuisine. ok. and now we come to something that everybodyknows. i mean, guess, anybody who doesn't know what it is? here?
this is, of course, hummus. and hummus issomething, oh my god. ok. hummus. now, hummus is basically very,very simple dish. it's chick peas, soaked and cooked, tahini, lemon juice, water, condiments.it's popular all over the middle east. everybody has hummus for breakfast, maybe as a partof mesa plate, but in israel, hummus is actually, i think i would call it a religion. definitelycult food. people rarely make it at home. they usually go out to a restaurant. thisone is, for example, from a place called hummus said in akko, one of the most famous hummusplaces in israel. and it's very male thing, you don't use knife and fork, you use, youknow, piece of very light, fluffy pita and you mop it up.
and if you had real hummus, freshly made thatdidn't spend any time in the refrigerator, you will know it's an amazing, amazing dish.otherwise, i know many jewish people in the united states, know it as something you serveat the bar mitzvah, and it's, it's, i mean, really nothing impressive. this is not realhummus. real hummus you make and you serve at once. it has to be warm because, you knowhummus in hebrew is "himtza." vinegar in hebrew is "hometz." it's the same root and this isnot accidental. hummus spoils very, very quickly, so to make industrial hummus, which what mostpeople in the states know as hummus, you have to stuff it with antioxidants, add citricacids, all kinds of stuff that spoils the flavor.
it's actually very easy to make hummus athome. the recipes in my book, but you can find it anywhere and the secret is make itand serve it. there is no other way and when it's good, it's really, really amazing; fluffy,flavorful, and actually there was a research conducted lately that proves that eating hummusactually releases endorphin in your mind. so, it's the ultimate make good, make feelwell food. so, let's see if i'll be able to move safely to the next step. ok, here wehave two other famous hummus temples, i would say. the bottom one is ali karavan, the most famoushummus in tel aviv, or actually in jaffa. by the way, invariably, best hummus placesin israel are owned by arabs and this is no
exception. ali karavan in jaffa, it's veryrare, actually, to be able to grab a table in ali karavan. usually have your hummus standingup on the pavement and balancing the plate and the pita and a few months ago i broughta bunch of really cool, important american food writers to israel on a culinary trip.and my fantasy was to take all these sophisticated new yorkers to ali karavan and have them eatinghummus standing up and they did. and one of them said, after the taste of the hummus,he said, well actually, "masabacha," which is a variation of hummus warm chick peas withtahini and condiments that is really out of this world, he tasted it and said, "ok, andnow what i'm going to do for the rest of my life?" and that was so, so great.
[laughter] so, this is hummus and as i said, anothercomponent, another cul-, much more falafel, by the way. falafel is sort of a little bitthing of the past. we so still have falafel joints, but they are dying out and hummusis stronger than ever. about a year or two ago, i think you might remember, sharon, wehad this very short lived fashion of fancy hummus with all kinds of creative toppings,like bolognese on top of hummus, mushroom ragu, it went away, thankfully very quickly,because-- you don't fool with hummus. and one last thingbefore i move to the-, to the new, to the next item, my, actually during my first booktour, a couple of years ago, i arrived in
israel, to the states, and i had whole bunchof things that i wanted to talk about, but everybody wanted to talk to me about hummus.and i couldn't figure out why until i realized that there was this movie, "don't fool with-- >>memberfemale: zohan >>janna: zohan, right. so, everybody wantedto know all about hummus and well, but hummus outlives even trends like zohan. ok, and now we have something else stuffedin the pita. now, you must understand in, in israeli food culture, pita is not justa pocket bread. it's a way of eating; it's a way of life. you stuff anything into a pita.you can stuff the whole lunch into a pita.
you can stuff schnitzel, french fries, salad,it goes all in a pita and it's actually sort of movable, a movable lunch, moveable table.but what we have here in the pita is actually quite interesting and unique. and it showsfor me yet another aspect of, of israeli food culture. it is called "sabih." anybody familiar,except the israelis here in the audience. anybody familiar here with the word sabih?do you know what it is? >>membermale: [inaudible] >>janna: oh, ok. good. but you know what itcomes from? what is the history? now, this is really interesting. sabih means "morning"in arabic. sabah al khair, sabih is morning. now, it's actually combination of fried eggplants,hard boiled eggs, hummus, which we already
know, and amba, a very spicy condiment comingfrom iraq and made from unripe mango. this combination, this very delicious combo-, combination,sandwich combo, actually originates as an iraqi jews shabbat breakfast. now this needssome explanation, i guess. i guess you know that according to israelireligion and judaism, you're not supposed to do any work on saturday. everything hasto be done in advance. you cannot light fire; you cannot do any manual work. on the otherhand, weekend is the time when you're supposed to have your best meals. so, to solve thisproblem, we have a lot of dishes designed to be prepared in advance and enjoyed duringthe shabbat. we have very, very famous cholents, you've all heard about; the jewish shabbatcasserole that stays all night in the oven
and then fills the house with all this heartysmells and after you eat some, you can only go to sleep, it's so filling and so heavy.and that's actually a good idea because it leaves nothing much to do on, on shabbat afternoonanyway. you cannot go to movies, i mean, you know,the observant jews and the other thing is breakfasts. breakfasts are usually cold foodprepared in advance and thing that are, that can be enjoyed cold. now, iraqi jews wouldhave this spread grilled eggplants, hard boiled eggs, hummus, and condiments on the tableand they would make their own pita with that. one gentleman from giv'atayim, a small townnear tel aviv, turned this sandwich combo into an economic empire. he became very richsending this sabih thing and today can go
into a trendy restaurant and all-, order asabih and a focaccia. but the origin is jewish ethnic tradition; jewish ethnic food fromiraq. and this actually teaches us two things about israeli food. one, that it draws itsinspiration from jewish ethnic Cooking, Recipes and number two, jewish ethnic Cooking, Recipes is much,much more than what we know, especially in the states as jewish ethnic Cooking, Recipes. it's not just gefilte fish, chopped liver,chicken soup, etc., it's mostly food that comes from all over the world because jewslived all over the world, in iraq, in iran, in, in morocco, in persia, in syria, in hungary,in everywhere they lived, they created some sort of ethnic cuisine that all, at some point,arrived in israel. so, we sort of pick and
choose interesting traditions from various,various places. i have another example here. i-, by the way, this is interpretation bya very famous israeli chef, yaron shalev; it's also called a sabih. i guess it has someeggplants, even though we cannot see them, it also has seafood and stuff. he calls itsabih. it doesn't look like one, but it's very good, actually. and here is another example,very quick example of breakfast food of traditional breakfast food. the israelis, do you knowwhat it is? jachnun. it comes from yemen, another place where jews lived for thousandsof years and it's actually, its dough rolled with fat. and i know it sounds sort of disgusting, noit doesn't, you like the idea, but think about
the croissant. what croissant dough, if youknow it? it's, it's, you flat out, you roll out pastry and put a lot of butter insideand then you roll it again and then you spread it, so i can call it "yemenite croissant."and you can have it with also hardboiled egg, something you could make in advance and gratedtomatoes. so, this is another example of breakfast food that turned all israeli favorite. and now we're moving on to the next interestingingredient that is maybe one single most important ingredient in modern israeli cuisine, andthis is, of course, tahini. i have it here. and it's made from sesame. one hundred percentground sesame; nothing else. nothing else should be there. now, in israel, we use itfor salads, for Cooking, Recipes, for dressing, for,
even for pastry. in the states, i think it'slargely misunderstood and used usually only for hummus. i have to convince people to actuallymake some use of it. in the end, if we have time, we're gonna have a little demo on howtahini spread is made. it's something that you shouldn't buy readymade. you should makeit yourself from raw material. it's very, very simple. it's 100% cholesterol free, it'sextremely versatile and we have here tahini cookies, by the way. they taste magnificentand those who stay till the end will have a cookie, ok? but i want to show you fifth, a few thingsyou can make with tahini. for example, these are lamb patties with tahini dressed-, tahinisauce. it's based on an arabic dish called
"simia." in arabic cuisine, tahini is oftenused for Cooking, Recipes and for baking. it doesn't break, it stays, it sort of hardens a littlebit and it gives very interesting flavor to the food. this is fish filet with raw tahinisauce. when i say raw, i mean tahini the way it is, you can't really see, but it's likebrownish paste. when you use it with water, mix it with water, you change the consistency,we will see it in a few minutes. and what else do we have with tahini? ok, sorry, theone you saw before, i want to go back to that. it's really cool. no, please, back. back.ok, this is tahini ice cream, ok? now, it sounds sort of strange, but do you know whatis halva? ok, many people like halva. you know that halva is sweetened tahini. it'sthe same thing, but with added sugar or honey.
now halva ice cream sounds great. so, thisis actually the same idea and what you have on top, this little hairs, are shredded halva.amazingly sweet and fluffy, it's like eating sweet clouds. it's really great. so, tahiniagain, it's middle eastern staple, it used everywhere in middle eastern Cooking, Recipes. israelichefs adopted it. they use it in very creative ways. we make all kind of flavored dressingswith that and you should learn how to use it. it's wonderful substitute for mayonnaise;100%cholesterol free, very healthy, very calorie dense, but good calories. ok, and now we come to the next symbol ofisraeli Cooking, Recipes and that's the israeli salad. now, again, we did not invent it. israelisalad is something that is actually chopped
salad, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, sometimespeppers, sometimes mint or cilantro, olive oil, lemon juice, maybe radishes, but thisis actually the basic thing. it has to be cut before you serve it. you don't make itin advance because the tomatoes go all mushy. now, similar salads are found throughout themiddle east, but i think israel, i'm quite sure that israel is the only country in theworld where you eat salad for breakfast. actually, we eat it three times a day, for breakfast,for lunch and for dinner. we sometimes stuff it in a pita and we sometimes serve it withtahini dressing. it's actually quite delicious. and, as i said, israeli, israeli salad ispart of the israeli breakfast and what sets apart israeli breakfast from all other breakfastsis the fact that we eat salad. and it originated,
actually this tradition of having salad forbreakfast originated on a kibbutz; this, you know, utopian agriculture commune where everybody,there was very much part of early israeli history. and on a kibbutz, the farmers, the workers,would go into the fields very, very early, you know all, you all know what a kibbutzis, of course, so i don't have to explain. ok, they would go to work very early, likeat 4 o'clock in the morning because it's a very, very hot country and they would comeback around 8 o'clock when it's already quite hungry because you put up, you know, three,four hours of very hard manual work. and actually, your breakfast would be almost your lunch.so, they made, they ate whatever was available
and what was available was fresh vegetables,of course. they would, actually, the kibbutzni wouldcut up their veggies by themselves and have some simple dairy products, maybe some bread,maybe some oranges, but israeli salad was there, in the middle, in the center. and today,i don't think you can have an israeli breakfast without a salad. and i have here some niceexamples. this is a variation using very, various kinds of tomatoes. we have great tomatoes in israel. i don'tknow if you know that. i didn't know that, but it turns out that israel invented cherrytomatoes, which i think quite important thing. after icq, i guess.
and this is an example of a restaurant versionof an israeli breakfast. you see some fancy croissant at the background, even some sausageand cheese and soft-boiled eggs and the salad, right there. very nice version of israelisalad. if you go to tel aviv today, actually someof the nicest meals you have, you can have in israel, in general, is breakfast. it'svery many leading restaurants serve breakfasts and they make it, turned it into a reallydelicious and elaborate meals. very cheap, by the way, and they sometimes serve it throughoutthe day. they just call it breakfast, but you can have it in the afternoon, also. andthere will be a salad. ok, and now i mentioned the fact that israelisalad was not invented in israel. this little
fellow was, actually, i can show you the wayit looks. i mean, this is the raw material and this is probably one of the only ingredientsthat were actually invented, food ingredients i mean, actually invented in israel. and it'sknown in the states as the israeli couscous. it's not couscous. we, in israel, call it"ptitim." ptitim means "little flakes" and it's actually toasted pasta flakes. and to tell you the story about them, i haveto take you to another interesting period of israeli history. we're talking about early50s, right after the state of israel was founded and there were huge, huge waves of immigrations,like four, five times larger than the original population of the country and the result wasthat there was shortage in everything. and
food was rationed for awhile. it became known as the age of austerity, or"tkufat hatsena" in hebrew, and there were not enough meat, not enough fish, not enoughdairy products, and, of course, not enough rice. and the story, the legend is that ben-gurionhimself, the prime minister of the state of israel, the first prime minister, came upwith an idea to produce pasta flakes that would resemble rice. and that's why the firstversion of ptitm was called ben-gurion rice. now, but it was not only rice shaped, it couldbe couscous shape, or ball shape, like these guys. and at some point, in the 90s, in israelyou must understand, ptitim is something kids love. it's a hit of the kindergarten lunchmenu, right? with a little bit of ketchup
on top. and in the 90s, suddenly israelisdiscovered to their very great surprise that these ptitim have become the most trendy ingredientin new york restaurants. so how did this happen? it was reborn as israeli couscous. i thinki found the answer. we sort of conducted a little research on this subject a couple ofyears ago and i believe i found the connection how this came about. an israeli chef, whosename is mika sharon, you may know her, worked in new york with a very famous chef, don pintabona,it's either tribeca grill or gramercy tavern-- >>memberfemale: tribeca grill >>janna: tribeca grill. and they were friends,actually. and he was having dinner at her home on friday night and she just made, youknow, a pot of ptitim for her kids. she wouldn't
even dream of serving it to, you know, thisimportant chef. he tasted it, he loved it, he took away a package that looked exactlylike that to the restaurant and the next day when she came to work, she realized that thereon the lunch special, made in some sort of fancy risotto and called israeli couscousbecause on the package it says, "toasted pasta flakes, israeli pasta flakes, toasted, israelicouscous," or something. so he just showed them that and turned itinto israeli couscous and this is, according to my research at least, how the whole israelicouscous craze starts. now, it finally becomes fashionable in israel as well. we say, "ok,if americans like it so much, we probably should have taken another look at that."
and, for example, this is, this was our coverphoto last summer. we did a big project on ptitim and it's actually ptitim salad, israelicouscous salad and by the way, i had a meal in philadelphia in a very fancy restaurantthe other day and they were serving ptitim for lunch as well, so i was very proud. ok,and now we come to something really, really important. before i settle on the name formy book, the book of new israeli food, i was sort of trying out all kind of interestingnames for the book, and one of them was, "his majesty, the eggplant and other vegetables." because this is the king of israeli vegetables,by far the most important one and what's nice about eggplant is that it's so versatile.it also has a chapter in this austerity age
that i was just telling you about, becausethere were plenty of eggplants. and because it's so versatile, and because it's so neutral,you can do almost anything with it. so, we had, like, faked chopped liver made from,from eggplants. later on, all the rage were fried eggplants in especially middle easternrestaurants, sometimes with tahini or with yoghurt, but the current and most contemporaryand in my opinion, the best way to cook eggplants is to burn them, or flame roast them. thisis the way to do it. i remember one of my new york lectures, iso convince somebody to do it that she tried to make it in her new york kitchen and thefiremen came because they, all smoke detectors were, were, buzzing, but if you have a barbequeor if you have, if you open a window, it's
completely safe. you just put it on a stove,it doesn't have to burn like that, but you do flame roast it until the skin is charredand soft and then you scoop out the flesh and it has this wonderful, smoky, delicateflavor that cannot be achieved if you make it in the oven. sorry, it has to be open fire. once you have this charred or burned or flameroasted eggplant, you can do all bunch of things with it. for example, you can makethe classic baba ganoush, which is flame roasted eggplant with tahini. or, if you are a trendyisraeli chef, you will do something like that. ok, this is, i call it "baba ganoush deconstructed."you take the whole eggplant and you slit it open and instead of making a salad, you justpour the ingredients on top of the vegetable.
here you have silan, remember i mentionedsilan, some olive oil, some tomatoes seeds, maybe some herbs, but actually it can be anything.you can put yoghurt on top. this is a very fancy and elegant way to serveeggplants in your home, for example, when you're entertain-, entertaining, you can makelike eggplant per person, slit it open, and you can either put the ingredients on topand serve them in the middle of the table and everybody will eat their entrees, so tospeak, only make sure you don't eat the skin because the skin is charred and not very tasty.or, you can remove the skin and just leave the eggplant and then it could be something,for example, like this. this dish is from a very nice restaurant in tel aviv calledsheila, and it's like quintessentially new
israeli cuisine, you have, you can see theeggplant on the bottom. ok, it's without the skin so it looks sortof beige colored. on top you see the israeli salad mixed with raw fish, like sashimi styleraw fish, very sort of nouveau israeli style of serving fish. and at the background, thegrayish sauce is actually tahini based, so you have like, the whole speil of israelicuisine in one little, pretty dish. ok, and we're moving to the next trendy item.somebody goes, "yeah," do you know what it is?you're just hungry, i think. you didn't have lunch. ok, this is shakshouka. shakshouka, now shakshoukaactually is another example of jewish ethnic
dish that became first very famous in israeland then sort of took even the world tour. it comes originally from tunisia. as i mentioned,the jewish traditions from all over the place. actually, it's very, i think the next photomay be more telling. now this is really another kind of, shakshouka, wait a second. ok, so what you do basically, to make shakshouka,you prepare a very, very spicy tomato sauce with peppers, with baharat, which is a typicalmiddle eastern spice mix, sometimes you can add eggplants, you can add sausage, whateveryou like. once the sauce is cooked and spicy and flavorful, you break some eggs on topand you wait until they are set. you can wait for three minutes, for five minutes, dependingon how you like your eggs. that's it.
and there was this guy named bino sadok, whocreated a place called dr. shakshuka in jaffa, and you serve, of course, you have to serveit in the same skillet with a lot of crusty white bread to mop up the sauce and he madeshakshouka so famous, i don't think there is a tourist coming to israel who go-, whodoesn't go to dr. shakshuka. but today, you can actually find all kinds of shakshoukas,not necessarily with tomato sauce. for example, this is also a shakshouka. it's shakshoukawith spinach and goat cheese and it's delicious and light. the same idea, but without thesauce, you just wilt, in this case, it's leek and pinach in spinach and then you break theeggs and you crumble some feta cheese on top; very famous, very popular breakfast dish inisrael in one of the fancy restaurant breakfasts.
another option, this is shakshouka actuallywith ratatouille. you can take the ratatouille, if you have ratatouille left in the fridge,or givech, some sort of stewed vegetables you can warm them in your skillet, break someeggs on top, scramble cheese, and call it shakshouka, even though it really isn't. andthis is another version of spinach shakshouka, very-. if you go to israel, to an israelirestaurant, you'll definitely find at least one version of shakshouka. actually, i rememberon early 80s, when the israeli cuisine, the sophisticated israeli cuisine was taking it'sreally first baby steps, we had this very, very famous restaurant called killeen, ownedby haim cohen, a very, very famous israeli chef, and he was basically preparing frenchcuisine, very sort of mediterranean, maybe
a little bit, but not israeli. he wouldn't serve any israeli food becausethey were considered too commonplace, nobody would pay lot of money to eat hummus, or tahini,or stuff like that. and one day, for his lunch specialty, he prepared shakshouka with foiegras, with goose liver, and it was a hit and he felt encouraged, and the next day he preparedkabab with tahini for the special and audience loved it and we can say these are, this iswhere the israeli cuisine really starts getting interested. because when we start relatingto our local traditions and from them drawing inspiration as well as from jewish ethnicCooking, Recipes, this is how it all actually happens. ok, and now, for the first time, i have somethingthat is really considered jewish. ok, and
i brought it, also because, well, we all lovechicken soup, but also because many people think that when they go israel, they're gonnaget to gefilte fish and chopped liver paradise. and they're very much surprised that thereis so little of that in israel. we do have some, what we call ashkenazi food, but it'svery, very rare. actually, in the world, when you say jewish food, you automatically meanthis kind of chopped liver, gefilte fish and stuff, but this is actually representativeonly small part of jewish cuisine; jewish cuisine from eastern europe and russia. the reason that it became synonymous withjewish food in general is because of massive waves of immigration of russian and polishjews coming to the states and to canada in
the beginning of 20th century. many of themwent into food business, opened up restaurants and delis, and made this food world famous.many dishes, by the way, they invented here. for example, when i was born in riga, formersoviet union, and that, the ashkenazi land, so to speak, and i can tell you i've neverhad bagel with cream cheese and lochs in riga. i don't think even we know what cream cheese,i mean, there was, there is no cream cheese in this area. this is an american invention,and neither we had reuben sandwich. it's 100% american, but i guess these dishes were preparedin these delis, in these restaurants, still are, and they became synonymous with jewishfood, but that's the whole beauty of it. there is nothing wrong with it.
make, this is important to understand, that'show cuisines evolve. that's how israeli cuisine evolves. that we take inspiration from variousdishes, we play around with them, we fuse them with something else, and this is actuallyvery good example and i have a personal story about this. this is jewish chicken soup. andit's, do you know what is this orange thing in, in the middle? what does it look like?it's pumpkin, yeah. now, those of you who know how to make jewish chicken soup wouldsay, "pumpkin? what is, what is pumpkin doing there?" well, the thing is, when my book wasfirst published and it was reviewed in american press and i got, i must say, i'm glad to say,very nice, favorable reviews, one of them, though, said that my ashkenazi dishes arenot to be trusted because they're not authentic
enough and as an example, my recipe for thechicken soup was given. now, it's important to emphasize, i'm nota chef, i'm a food writer and the majority of recipes in my book are not my recipes,they are recipes by famous israeli chefs or very traditional recipe. this is my chickensoup. i mean, i really know how to make a chicken soup and she said, this person, thatit's not authentic enough because she said, "janna says use as many vegetables as youlike; leeks and celery and pumpkin." and she said, "and pumpkin? my boba is turning inher grave. you do not put pumpkin into chicken soup." and, well, i was sort of a little bitirate in the beginning, but then i decided to check other israeli recipes for chickensoup and surprisingly enough, almost all of
them had pumpkin. so, at this point, i sort of, i was almostglad about this critic because it sort of gave me an insight on what israeli cuisineis because we may call it jewish classic chicken soup, but it is already influenced by otherjewish chicken soups that do have pumpkins and a bunch of other stuff. for example, thisone, this is moroccan vegetable soup that you serve over couscous and it has pumpkin,of course, and it has zucchini and it has other stuff. and so, what happens becauseisraeli society is very, very mixed, it's not just immigrant society, but intermarriageis actually the norm. almost, every israeli you meet, you ask wherehe or she is from, they would say, "my father
is from iraq, my mother is from hungary. myfather is from yemen, my mother is from morocco." so, when there is this kind of intermarriage,automatically there is cross-over on the plate. so, schnitzel and couscous during one lunch,chicken soup that you can't really know where it comes from because it turns out that everyjewish food culture has its own version of chicken soup. and pumpkin, sort of, crossover from balkan or moroccan tradition right to ashkenazi one and i think that's the wholebeauty of that. so, thank that, i don't remember her name, this critic that gave me this wonderfulinsight. and now we come to malabi, another ola kadashni immigrant, this time from turkey, it's a very sweet, lovely pudding made from water,corn flour, milk, and rose essence. it started
out as street snack that you would buy fromstreet carts and it developed into a very fancy dessert. that's how it would look likein the restaurant. the red sauce, the raspberry sauce goes on the bottom instead of on topand then you have the actual pudding and on top you have some nice little fruit compote,an example of street food that turned into a restaurant dessert. and this is malabi cheesecake;the same idea, but applied to cheesecake flavored with rose essence. and now we come to the last one of the dozen.i just couldn't resist bringing this photo, which, in my opinion, is the most beautifulphoto in the book. and it's actually interesting because of; these are of course, pomegranates.
and this is a pomegranate grove and, you know,it's interesting with symbols. my book has pomegranates on the cover and two other israelicookbooks, very, sort of, you know, cookbook coffee table books, published in english,also have pomegranates on the cover. and frankly, and sharon will correct me, we do not usethat many pomegranates in Cooking, Recipes. i mean, it's, we sometimes sprinkle them on top of,on top of tabouli salads. i mean, people buy them because they are sobeautiful and you, they look nice in a bowl on the table, but during recent years whenthe nutritionist discovered that they have all these amazing antioxidant qualities, somebodybecame crazy, all of us became crazy for pomegranates and we started to grow them commercially inisrael because ten years ago you would mainly
find pomegranate trees in the backyard, likeone or two trees. now, we have this amazingly beautiful pomegranates groves i think thatmy, for me it looks like the, you know, the fruit of the garden of eden. something that was the adam and eve are temptedto eat and we are rediscovering, actually, things that we can do with pomegranates sincewe so, have so many and for example, we can make this. this is one of my favorite chef,his name is erez komarovsky, one of the most interesting and creative israeli chefs. here,he makes a beet and pomegranate salad. a wonderful combination, same color, different texture,different flavors, if you have pomegranates in season, try it. it takes two minutes; ithink it's one of the best salads in the book.
and, here, and at this, where i want to finish,i go back to jewish ethnic Cooking, Recipes, which for me, is one of the most exciting aspectsof our food culture. as i told you, jews have lived all over the world for centuries, forthousands of years. wherever they lived they created their own cuisines and we have allof them now in israel. it won't last long, by the way. it will be gone in a matter ofgeneration, too, because this is time consuming, labor intensive style of Cooking, Recipes and thesecuisines actually represent cultures that do not exist anymore. think of it. there are no more jews left neitherin iraq nor iran, syria, persia, so these are endangered species, but they still doexist and those of you are interested in ethnic
Cooking, Recipes and have access to these wonderfulcooks, should learn how to make a few recipes and try to preserve them for future generations.what we have here, by the way, is the lady, i forgot her name, i'm afraid, i know, hername is rachel, actually. and she's from lovely persian restaurant, in kfar_saba, a littletown near tel aviv, called gohar, and the dish she's holding proudly in her hands arelamb patties in fesenjan sauce. this is persian sauce made from walnuts and pomegranates molassesand served with fresh pomegranates and cilantro. amazing dish, now existing in israel, goingback all the way to thousand years ago when it was first created in, by persian jews andfor me this sort of closes the circle, the cycle of what we call israeli cuisine, whichis cuisine in progress. we don't even know
where it's going, but one thing i can tellyou, those of you who haven't been to israel, or who have been, we're having some great,terrific, fresh health food and it's only will get better with time, i think. now, ifwe have time for little tahini demo and you have energy, i'll be happy to oblige, if not,i'm ready for questions so we can do both things simultaneously. and thank you verymuch.
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