To Serve
2 tablespoons of water.
Tahini Sauce (page 281)
4. Heat 2 inches (5 centimeters) of oil in a deep
saucepan over medium heat to 350°F (180°C).
Using a falafel spoon or a small ice-cream scoop,
shape the mixture into balls the size of a walnut
and lightly press to flatten.
5. Fry the falafel balls, 6 at a time until golden brown
all over, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a colander or a
paper-towel-lined baking sheet to remove excess oil.
6. Serve warm on a platter with tahini sauce.
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K A S H K S O U P W I T H C H I C K P E A S A N D R I C E
Many food cultures have a version of this soup, all of which are based on kashk,
a dehydrated yogurt that comes to life when dissolved in hot water.
Serves 4 to 6
1. Rinse chickpeas thoroughly. Place the chickpeas
in a bowl, add water to cover by at least 2 inches
3 tablespoons olive oil
(5 centimeters) and soak in the refrigerator for 12
2 medium onions, chopped
hours. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Set aside.
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup (200 grams) chickpeas
2. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat.
8 cups (2 liters) stock or water
Add the chopped onions, stir to coat in the oil
¼ cup (50 grams) dried green lentils
and cook until golden brown, stirring occasionally,
1 teaspoon turmeric
about 30 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for
1 teaspoon cumin
1 minute. Set aside half of the mixture for serving.
½ teaspoon ground coriander seeds
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3. Add the chickpeas and stock or water and bring to a
2 cups mixed herbs, such as dill, cilantro,
boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1¼ hours,
and mint, chopped
until the chickpeas are soft.
3 scallions, chopped
One 3.5-ounce (100-gram) piece of kashk dissolved
4. Add the lentils and season with turmeric, cumin,
in ½ cup (120 milliliters) hot water, or 1 cup (240
coriander, salt, and pepper. Cook for 40 minutes,
grams) plain whole-milk yogurt or sour cream
until the lentils and chickpeas are soft and cooked
through. If the liquid has evaporated during
To Serve
cooking, add 1 cup of water.
1½ cups (100 grams) egg noodles, cooked al dente
1 lemon or lime, cut into wedges
5. Add 1 cup (50 grams) of mixed herbs, half of the
scallions, and ½ cup (120 milliliters) of the dissolved
kashk to the soup, reserving the rest for serving. Mix
well, and adjust seasoning to taste. Note that the
kashk is saltier than yogurt or sour cream.
Left:
Fenugreek (hulbah), chickpea
6. Divide the egg noodles among deep serving
(himmis), and melilot (handaquq).
bowls and pour the soup over them. Top with
the remaining onion-garlic mixture, garnish with
Turkish version of the twelfth-century
mixed herbs, scallions, and kashk, and serve with
codex Ajā’ib al-Makhlūqāt (Wonders
a lemon or lime wedge.
of Creation) by Zakarīyā al-Qazwīnī,
compiled by Muhammad Shākir
Rūzmah-’i Nāthānī. The Walters Art
Museum, Baltimore
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Hummus
C H I C K P E A A N D V E A L C A S S E R O L E
M A F T O U L P A L E S T I N I A N C O U S C O U S
W I T H S H A T T A P E P P E R S
Maftoul is the Palestinian couscous. In the Italian kitchen it is known as fregola, in North America
it is called Israeli couscous, and in Israel it goes by ptitim. Essentially, these are baked pasta pearls
Slow cooking is the secret to unlocking depths of flavor in simple ingredients, as is the case with
and as such cook very quickly, yet they also retain their shape and texture when slow-cooked.
this hearty stew, which combines chickpeas and veal shanks. Its richness finds a complement in shatta
Maftoul can be served as a side or a main dish.
peppers, a chile that ranges from mild to hot and possesses a naturally acidic flavor. The stew is at its
best two days after it is made, so if possible, prepare it in advance.
Serves 4
1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Add the onion and sauté until soft and golden,
Serves 6 to 8
1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium
2½ cups (500 grams) maftoul, fregola,
8 minutes. Add the ground meat and cook,
heat. Add the veal shanks and cook, turning
or Israeli couscous
occasionally breaking up the meat with a
¼ cup (60 milliliters) olive oil
occasionally, until lightly browned on all sides,
¼ cup (60 milliliters) olive oil
wooden spoon, until it is browned all over,
4 veal shanks
10 to 12 minutes. Remove the shanks and set aside.
1 medium onion, finely chopped
about 10 minutes.
2 medium onions, chopped
Add the onions and sauté until softened, 5 minutes.
8 ounces (220 grams) ground lamb
2 to 3 shatta peppers or red chile peppers, such as
Stir in the chile peppers, garlic, and baharat.
1 teaspoon store-bought or homemade Baharat
2. Add the maftoul and cook, stirring continuously
fresno (fresh or dried)
Spice Mix (page 376)
until it starts to turn golden, 3 minutes. Add the
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2. Add the chopped tomatoes and sauté until juicy,
1 teaspoon cumin
baharat, cumin, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring,
1 tablespoon store-bought or homemade Baharat
5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and sauté for
1 teaspoon salt
another 1 to 2 minutes.
Spice Mix (page 376)
3 minutes more. Place the shanks on top in an even
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds (900 grams) ripe tomatoes (about 4
layer, pour in the water, and bring to a boil.
3 cups (720 milliliters) boiling stock
3. Add the stock and chickpeas, stir together,
tomatoes), peeled and chopped
2 cups (500 grams) Cooked Chickpeas for Salads
and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover,
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3. Using a spoon, skim the foam floating to the
and Stews (pages 176-7)
and simmer until the water is absorbed,
2 cups (500 grams) Cooked Chickpeas for Salads
surface. Reduce to low heat, cover, and cook at a
about 6 minutes.
and Stews (pages 176-7)
low simmer for 1½ hours.
6 cups (1½ liters) water
4. Remove from the heat, stir gently, cover, and let rest
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4. Add the chickpeas and cook for 1 hour, until the
for 6 minutes before serving.
meat is falling off the bone and the chickpeas are
To Serve
very tender. Season with salt a
nd pepper. If the
Cooked white rice
mixture becomes too dry, add more water.
5. Remove from the heat and let rest for 15 minutes
before serving over cooked white rice.
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Adam and Eve, by Peter Paul Rubens.
Hummus
Rubens House, Antwerp /
Michel Wuyts and Louis De Peuter
A N G E L S I N G A Z A
Anna-Marie Ravitzki
I love falafel, love listening to the sizzling sound of it frying in oil. When I was
a little girl, my mother and I would take bus number 40 or 42 to Jaffa just to
eat falafel, then we would walk back home via Jerusalem Boulevard. Today I sit
on a rock in the South of France, the flies and mites roving round my face as
I try to understand the meanings of the words. On the corner of Wolfson and
Herzl streets, there was a synagogue on the third floor. I thought it was a place
that atones all sins, where they would celebrate bar mitzvahs and we would eat
arbes, cooked chickpeas with lots of salt and pepper. My father used to laugh
and say, “Don’t eat too much, arbes will give you gas!”
When I was all grown up, I went looking for angels in Gaza. I met the dervishes.
I do not forget the sound of their reed flutes and their stories of love for Rumi.
We drank tea and ate fruit. The dervish looked like a god and had the eyes of
Apollo, the kind that can see far into the distance. When we went out, he took
me with him to a falafel stand. In Gaza, I experienced a dervish angel with eyes
so blue that all of the world’s goodness melted into his eyeball, falafel street
stands, and the big blue sky. I know he noticed me. Today I freeze with shame
whenever bad words are linked to this place.
Later, I began my personal journey through stormy blue spaces in search of
smooth stones, moss, fishermen voices, ships, the solemn crunch of sizzling
chickpeas, and the search for meaning. This wandering in the philosophical and
mythological expanses led me to the dialectic method that requires a partnership
of at least two who wonder from within about an ethical derivative, in order to
find an answer to this existence, while seeking responsibility for the other within
this circle in which we live.
Not in vain did Plato choose to call his great epic Symposium. During the banquet
held at the symposium, Socrates gives his speech on the love of goodness and the
love of wisdom and Eros and the path to virtue. We were all raised on mythical
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consciousnesses associated with the Tree of Knowledge, with good and with evil.
Mythologies, they are an existential cargo through which we are supposed to
God forbids man from eating from the fruit of the tree, all the transcendental
experience the limits of our understanding and our senses and the openness
norms manifest in the yield of the fruit and its flavor. Man did not do as God
towards the other and the different. The voice of conscience rolled itself out
commanded and ate from the apple. This is the beginning of an ethical struggle,
before me at that falafel stand and in the dervish sheikh’s blue eyes immersed
and the eating that ensues removes some type of partition between God and the
with mystery. The eating was authentic, an infinite event of an ecstatic nature
urge for existential freedom in the world of Adam and Eve. Choosing to eat from
that produced a dialectical encounter filled with faith, for which ethics is the
the apple causes them to later surrender to the boundaries of the substantial world.
commitment to the other. A dialectic of humaneness and meaning found in one
apple and in one falafel stand in the middle of a busy street. The inauthentic
Cain and Abel. Both brought offerings to God, their offerings being food. One
person seeks only futile chatter, about food too. The preoccupation with belonging
brings meat, the other fruit and vegetables. God wants the produce of one and
instead of dialectic meaning reflects man’s decay through the use of language
refuses the other. Does God recognize the lack of authenticity in Cain’s offering?
and tongue. Whose is the hummus? This is a linguistic engrossment that attacks
Does Abel’s offering hint at a genuine existence originating in an authentic
us with feelings of alienation. The hummus and falafel, the apple, are to me the
existence? Does food serve as an ethical modification and as an expression of some
voice of conscience that points at the individual person, through the authenticity
true existence of the individual? Cain kills Abel, it is the first murder perpetrated
of the simple act of eating.
as an expression of a personal insult originating from a food offering.
The dialectics and the search are not about who owns hummus but rather about
The dervish in Gaza served me fruit, the skies were clear. There was a tenderness
you and I. It is a direct appeal to the other, with an affinity that eliminates all
in his hands. He spoke of God and my body breathed. I deciphered myself in
separateness, because both you and I have already eaten from the forbidden fruit
the hand extended to me with half of an apple, which he had cut earlier with a
and are now in dialogue where each of us grants the other this ethical claim for
small kitchen knife. The place transformed into a Socratic banquet, we ate an
the right to exist, to equality, and to love. The phenomenology and meaning,
apple from the same plate and talked. After that the water in the glass was so
the dialogue and the love, look at us through the textures of food, which are
cold, the space of the room was transparent and we were all exposed to the same
intended to bring hearts closer together, in this dimension, of the future.
air and the same food. Outside, at the falafel stand, in this same flavor of one
fate, I understood why God had refused Cain’s offering. These myths tell of all
the meanings of the matters of food.
Anna-Marie Ravitzki is a philosopher, poet, and artist living and creating in Paris and the
The dervish with the blue eyes exposed us, and just like a work of art, the food
Périgord region in the South of France. She researches the space between philosophy and
exposes us to statements of ethics, psychology, and identity that shape us within
science, and her books have been published in Hebrew, French, and German. The leading
French publisher Éditions Gallimard honored her poetry book Le Voile de l’Ange (A Veil of
a long tradition of gatherers, growers, bakers and cooks, poets and scientists,
an Angel) with the prestigious Prix Alain Bosquet, for the best translated book in France.
together embroidering the human race into the same inner experience, where
language can only define what the palate and the soul accentuate. Our role
is to gather food and create equality as well as a connection linking mankind
with phenomenology and a possible ethics, because eating is a primordial act,
a mythical act. Food is the language, tongue, palate, and Logos that humans
need, and each individual is the creative architect who transforms it into an act
of the senses and of aesthetics.
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Hummus
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Firewood sellers eat falafel in their
small shop at the busy Firas Market
of Gaza City.
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Selling fresh falafel in a small
street stall in Gaza.
Hummus
افاي
M E M O R I E S F R O M M Y M O T H E R ’ S K I T C H E N · H U M M U S B I L S H A T T A
H U M M U S W I T H H O T P E P P E R S · M S A B A H A S W I M M I N G C H I C K P E A S
M E S H U L A S H T R I P L E H U M M U S À L A A B U H A S S A N
Jaffa
S A R D I N E F A L A F E L · W H I T E F A V A B E A N H U M M U S
P I T A P O C K E T S · A B R I E F H I S T O R Y O F H U M M U S · T H E T A L E O F M U L L A H
N A S R E D D I N A N D H I S C O A T
ופי
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Jaffa
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Jaffa
Hummus
Hummus
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Jaffa
Shulamit continues in the footsteps
of her husband, who established the
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legendary eatery Falafel Itzik.
Jaffa
This traditional taboon oven is
built over a blazing fire pit, baking
the dough thrown flat on its walls
to crisp perfection, for wraps and
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dipping in hummus spread.
Hummus
M E M O R I E S F R O M M Y M O T H E R ’ S K I T C H E N
Joudie Kalla
Growing up in a Palestinian home was never boring. I mean this in the sense that
there was always so much going on, lots of family, sisters and brothers, gatherings,
and plenty of food. Our table was always filled with so much selection, I don’t
know how my mother kept it up, treating us to so much wonderful variety. We
always had a plate of labneh, olives, cucumbers, and radishes on the table, and
za’atar, too. Chickpeas were also pretty much at every dinner, and they were
prepared in so many ways.
As I reflect on my history with this wonderful pulse, it really is a symbol of the
Middle East for me. It is used in so many dishes, like qedreh – a clay pot of rice,
chickpeas, and meat, originally from al-Khalil; qudsiyeh – hummus with fava beans
and chickpeas, whose name translates to “Jerusalemite”; balila – warm cumin-
spiced chickpeas; and our favorite breakfast foods, falafel and fattet hummus.
Ariel Rosenthal, Orly Peli-Bronshtein, Dan Alexander Page 5