Israel: What we ate

Food is always a good place to start. In short: If you don't like garbanzo beans, you probably shouldn't visit Israel. I happen to love garbanzo beans, and was perfectly happy to eat them in different forms 2-3 times daily.

First, you should know that every hotel we stayed in was kosher. For those of you not up on the kosher rules, it involves a whole lot more than not eating pork. I got a pretty good grasp of kosher from my days living in New York. Someday I'll tell you about my Orthodox Jewish friends and coworkers, and my neighbor Naked Charlie (who wasn't Jewish, but liked to use the Jewish ambulance service). But I digress. Here are the basic kosher rules (keeping in mind that I'm a gentile, and in no way the authority on this):

• Observant Jews can only eat animals that have cloven hooves and chew their cud. Pigs have cloven hooves, but don't chew their cud, hence the pork ban. Animals also have to be killed in a Rabbi certified facility in a ritual manner. According to the Torah, the animal must not suffer any pain, so it has to be rendered unconscious instantaneously and die immediately. Then the forbidden fats, blood and veins are removed, and it is further prepared.
  
• Observant Jews can eat fish, but only fish with fins and scales. That means no shrimp, lobster, mussels, etc. Fish is not considered meat, and can be eaten with dairy.
  
• Observant Jews cannot combine meat and dairy at any time. And not only can they not combine the foods, but the utensils used to prepare and eat the two must not touch. My Orthodox Jewish friend invited me to dinner at her house once, and she had two sets of everything in her kitchen (dishes, silverware, even a high chair tray for her baby). I think that she also had two refrigerators, and possibly two ovens (it's a little hazy). After you eat meat, you have to wait between 1 and 6 hours before eating dairy (depending on which sect you follow), but after eating dairy, you can eat meat right after. If I was Jewish, I think that might encourage me to eat dessert first...
• There are many processed foods that use ingredients like whey (which is often made using a tiny bit of milk) which could contaminate a product like bread, making it unfit for eating with a meat meal. That is why Rabbinical associations have to certify EVERYTHING before an observant Jew can eat it. There are kosher stamps of approval on things you eat every day, but you probably didn't know that the U with a circle around it meant certified kosher. If you're interested, you can see all of the symbols used here.
  

Now that everyone is clear on the kosher rules, you will have a much better understanding of our daily buffets. Breakfast was the dairy buffet, which included eggs, toast, yogurt, cottage cheese, and cold chopped up fish (which I never sampled to tell you if it was any good). There was also plenty of cheese, pickled salads, vegetables, and of course hummus. Americans differentiate breakfast from every other meal of the day, and we think that other people are strange for eating lunchmeat in the morning. Curry and rice for breakfast? I think not. It turns out that we're the weird ones. Everyone else eats the same food for breakfast that they eat at any other time of the day. My American ways got the better of me, and I just stuck to the muesli and yogurt.

For lunch we usually had falafel (ground up garbanzo beans mixed with spices and bread crumbs, shaped into balls and deep fried, then put into a pita with vegetables and an assortment of salad). Here I am loving me a falafel (after eating so many, I now consider myself a conossieur of falafel). When we were staying at the Sea of Galilee (which is really a lake), we went to dinner at a kibbutz (which is like a small town or settlement). When I asked a member of the kibbutz what exactly it was, she told me it was "like communism." Basically, it is communal rural living. When they first gained popularity, nobody got a paycheck, and everything was collective. This included the children. If you had a child, you didn't name it, the kibbutz council did. The child didn't live with you, but it lived in a house according to it's age (all the 3-year olds in one house, etc.). Now it has evolved a bit, so people have some personal property. You have to be voted in, and if you are not a member, you have to pay a non-member fee to live there. The girl I talked to said that both of her parents were members of the Ein Gev kibbutz, but that she had no intention of joining. Anyway, Ein Gev kibbutz was right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (now called Lake Kinneret), and they served St. Peter's fish (one of the tilapia species). Biologists have confirmed that this fish has not evolved much at all, and it has been around since the time of Jesus.

I generally avoid fish with their heads and scales still attached, but I figured it would be an adventure.
I thought I did a pretty good job of eating my fish (minus the skin).
Then I saw Cristina's fish.
Besides the kibbutz night, every other evening was spent at the meat dinner buffet. I generally don't like buffets, and am especially skeptical of mass produced meat, but I was very happy to stick the peripheries and get my fill of good salads, hummus, and soup. I found some new favorite salads that I am going to try and make when I get home.
First we have shredded carrot and cilantro salad. It doesn't look good, but looks can be deceiving sometimes. Next we have my very favorite, which I like to call avocado goodness. We only had this one night, but it was divine (despite looking like throw up). It had cubed avocado, red pepper, tomato, onion, cilantro, and diced lemon (which I think was the secret ingredient to give it the great texture). And finally, we have cabbage salad. Cabbage salad is a new favorite for me. The one here is somewhat sweet, with a dressing that tasted like cream (but couldn't be, since it was at the meat buffet). The other variety I liked was slightly pickled and sour tasting.

Besides the buffets, I also ate Jewish bagels (very good), kosher pizza (also very good) and some ice cream that our tour director said was the best he had ever had (I learned that the tour director doesn't have very developed taste buds, and never went on another one of his recommendations).

And the best part about the food? The fact that when I got home and stepped on the scale, I had not gained any weight. Take that buffets.