Talk of the Table | Seven Dishes for Seven Decades
The long tradition of Jewish food, wrote culinary historian Gil Marks, has always been one of “transforming and transferring,” and Israeli food is no exception. On Israel’s 70th anniversary, we look at Israeli history through food: We selected seven dishes, one for each decade. A word of warning: These dishes by no means represent the entire story of Israeli cuisine. But they can provide your taste buds with a reminder of how the country’s culinary traditions evolved—and what they say about Israeli history.
1948–1958
Spurred by austerity, Ashkenazi Jews turn eggplant into “chopped liver”
A key challenge facing the struggling newborn nation was feeding the droves of immigrants arriving at its shores. The shortage of supplies and the lack of foreign currency to import food forced leaders to impose food rationing. Each month, every citizen was allocated, for...
