Original subtitles

[narrator] Funding for

In Search of Israeli Cuisine

is provided by...

[speaking Hebrew] I want

to eat something grilled,

something special...

Do you want me to set

a table for you?

I don't need a table,

just laffa (bread)

or something.

[Mike Solomonov] I've been here

before, I know the treatment

that you get

when you sit down.

I said, "You know,

I just wanted something

really, really small to eat."

And this is what you get.

You get 17 salads

plus hummus.

This is known as

a Yemenite grill restaurant.

Notice: Yemenite,

Palestinian, Iraq,

Moroccan, Moroccan.

This is Russian,

the carrots are from Europe,

the beets are from Europe.

These are sort of Eastern

because of the turmeric.

Turkish, Moroccan,

I don't even know... Greek?

How many countries are

represented in one place?

I was born in Israel,

and I was

raised in Pittsburgh.

My family moved back to Israel

when I was around 15,

and I stayed here

for one year

and went to

a boarding school.

Moved back to the States,

attempted college,

failed miserably,

moved back to Israel,

and got a job cooking here,

and fell in

love with it.

So we're getting the Jerusalem

mixed grill right now.

This is like old-school

street food at its best.

[chatter]

Mm!

Then I moved

back to the States,

went to culinary school,

started cooking

in Philadelphia

and cooking

European sort of food,

like French and Italian

and more refined cuisine.

And then, my brother

was killed here, um...

ten years ago.

And I think that what happened

subconsciously is

I started cooking

more Israeli cuisine

and, I think, attaching myself

to the country and the culture

and the food

are things that have kept,

you know, kept me going.

It's got lemon juice,

it's got zucchini,

celery, Swiss chard,

semolina dumpling

stuffed with beef.

In 2008, my business

partner Steve and I

decided to open

an Israeli restaurant,

and the big question was,

what is Israeli food?

Will it work?

So we have cilantro,

parsley, mint, onion, okay?

So I can come here

and bang some pans

with some chefs

and learn some new

recipes and secrets

and appreciate

this country more,

because every day,

every minute that you're here,

you're exposed

to something new.

-[Mike] Mm!

-[Steve] All right.

Pretty good, man, huh?

Little bit more, eh,

salt, more pepper,

-and it's perfect.

-Good. Thanks a lot, brother.

[Mike] It's about

tasting new things,

and talking about history,

this rich, abundant history,

and conflict

and turmoil, as well.

The mission is to show Israeli

cuisine in its entirety,

and to show

Israeli culture,

and the complexity

of things here,

but also the beauty

of things here.

Tel Aviv is

the New York City of Israel.

It's the center

of new Israeli cuisine.

It's the most modern

and most secular city,

unlike Jerusalem,

which is the most religious.

Most people don't know

that most Israelis

aren't religious,

and don't observe

kosher dietary laws.

Tel Aviv is the place

where chefs want to be.

[Meir Adoni] I think

the biggest dream of every cook

is to open

his own restaurant.

And then after year one,

you're like, "This is

the worst idea

I've ever had

in my life," right?

Let's talk about

what you do here.

What do you make?

[Adoni] We are taking

universal techniques.

We start from the French

techniques, we study

the Spanish cuisine,

but we are bringing it

to our plates in our way.

And what that means

is, like, local products--

like goat cheese from Israel

and olive oil from Israel

and local fish and local lamb.

What we find that

is the best in Israel,

that's what we're going

to put on the plate.

What is amazing

in Israel,

I think it's the only

country in the world

that so many cuisines

came here together.

And you have, like,

more than 150 different

cuisines that came.

And all of them,

of course, Jewish.

And what we are trying

to do here is to take

those traditional Jewish dishes

and, like, play with them.

[Ruthie Rousso] When I talk

to people outside of Israel

about Israeli cuisine, people

tend to laugh about it.

I've been asked

so many times,

"What is exactly

Israeli cuisine?"

And actually,

people even question

if there is

Israeli cuisine.

Yes, there

is Israeli cuisine.

Yes, there is

an Israeli kitchen.

It is so complex.

It is so diverse.

And this is why it is

hard to define it,

not because

it does not exist.

Israeli cuisine

is a nonexistent idea.

We're too young

to have our own cuisine.

That would be just,

eh, ridiculous,

to claim that in 65 years,

we've managed

to recreate our cuisine.

[Janna Gur]

It's not a cuisine yet.

It's perhaps a nascent cuisine,

a baby cuisine;

but a very

precocious baby.

It's a combination

of what we have here,

of local terroir

of Palestinian cooking,

and of our immigrant baggage,

which we brought

from our grandparents,

who basically come

from all over the place,

and that's

what makes it special.

We're going to make

some traditional Turkish food,

stuff from

my grandmother's house.

Your family is from

Turkey, 100%?

No, my dad.

My mom's family

comes from Poland.

-We're just gonna render

and sort of caramelize--

-Right, exactly.

Beautiful. So, how do you take

traditional Israeli cuisine,

food that I grew up with,

my grandmother's food,

how do you turn that

into something modern?

We're more flexible

because this culture

is younger,

and it allows you to maneuver

and change things from the base.

I mean, when you have a culture

that is 1,000 years old,

then it's difficult

to change it.

For example, Jewish food will be

very difficult to change, okay?

Every time you change

the seasoning of the chicken--

God forbid you should have

not-traditional chopped liver.

Right.

My grandmother's

Bulgarian.

She would make boreka

dough with margarine.

And she would do it because

they had no access to butter.

We all know that

margarine sucks,

that butter beats up

margarine in a fight...

[both chuckle]

...and that margarine

is terribly unhealthy,

and because

we're not poor immigrants

living in a tent

for two years,

we can afford butter.

What do I do?

Do I make it with butter,

or do I make it

with margarine?

-You make it with butter.

-Butter.

You can't make the dough

-exactly like your

grandmother, right?

-I cannot.

You can't add

that special ingredient

of caring that she used,

but you can add the butter

that she couldn't use.

You're making your

grandmother's dish right now,

and it's obviously

more than just food, right?

I used to have borekas

on the menu at Zahav,

and after

my grandmother passed away,

I just didn't want

them on there anymore.

I didn't want

people to handle it.

I didn't want restaurant people

coming in and judging it.

I'm eating all of

this right now.

( laughs )

-Hmm.

-It feels like home.

[Solomonov] My relationship

with my grandmother--

I mean, I didn't

speak Hebrew.

Our conversation wasn't that

great, it wasn't that rich.

You know, it wasn't strained.

I mean, I loved her,

but we just didn't have a lot

going for us, you know?

But the borekas were

something, in a weird way,

that brought us together.

She was a fantastic woman

and a great cook,

and she would make

these pastries.

That, quite honestly, was her

way of doing something for me.

I was 19, not a particularly

high point in my life,

and I couldn't

find a job anywhere

because my Hebrew

was terrible.

I really was skill-less.

So I walked down

the street looking for a job.

I looked into this bakery.

They've got trays and trays

and trays of these borekas,

these borekas that

my grandmother cooked for me,

that I grew up

with and loved.

So I stumbled in, asked them

if they needed help,

and they gave me a job.

It was mostly

scrubbing sheet trays

and being yelled at

in many different languages

that I didn't understand,

and eventually I learned how

to make pastries there.

And then I got a job

cooking up the street

for 30 cents more

an hour, maybe,

and that was it!

So here they are.

Safta Mati's borekas.

These borekas smell

like her kitchen.

[Rousso] Many years ago,

it was completely different.

People were ashamed of

presenting

their grandmothers' cooking...

mainly because

of Israel's history.

People wanted to come here

and become Israeli.

They didn't know

what Israeli meant,

but they just knew it's not

what they were at home.

So they wanted to adapt

a new identity,

which meant they had

to erase their old identity.

[Gil Hovav] They were

speaking Yiddish and Russian

and Arabic and French

and Turkish and,

eh, Ladino and whatever,

but not Hebrew.

My great-grandfather

was Eliezer ben-Yehuda.

He singlehandedly revived

Hebrew about 150 years ago.

At the time, Hebrew

was completely dead,

just like Latin today,

and it was his vision

that Zionism

would only come

with a language.

[Gur] All these young pioneers

during the early Zionist era

wanted nothing

to do with the diaspora,

neither the language

nor the foods

that reminded them

of years of persecution

and discrimination,

all the things that they

were running away from.

[Offaim] They looked

at their fellows in Europe,

Europe of the end

of the 19th century.

The Jews, most of them

were living in poverty.

They were outcasts

of society.

They lived in small

villages in the dirt,

and they said,

"We don't want to

be those Jews."

[Rousso] It was

looked down at--

people who were looking

like immigrants,

who were cooking or dressing

or talking like immigrants.

Everyone was looking up

at whoever looked Israeli,

whatever that meant.

It had to be local.

You had to be tougher.

[Offaim] This is a new Jew.

It is a strong,

masculine Jew who's not afraid,

who carries weapons,

who protects himself.

No one will be able to make

a pogrom with the new Jews.

You know, when you get lost,

when you're navigating

in the army,

and you get lost,

they tell you one thing.

"Go back to the last place

you knew where you are."

And the last place we knew

where we are is Eretz Israel.

And this is why

my ancestors have decided

to make the long way

from 19th-century Europe

to Eretz Israel, and they

didn't want to come here

dressed in black

reading their holy scriptures,

and wait for

God to help them.

They wanted to be

in charge of their own fate,

of their own destiny.

And in order to do that, they

needed to provide the first

and foremost thing that people

need in order to survive: food.

[restaurant chatter]

I had

a very clear vision

as to what I wanted

to do in my restaurant,

and my vision was that

the experience should be whole

and the food,

the ingredients,

the way we touch the food,

the way the food is

served on the table,

the plates, everything

has to be part

of the experience

of nature.

The fact that the place is

open, that you can smell,

that you can feel, that you

can see, that you can hear.

So I started learning

traditional dishes

of local Palestinian cuisine

and of southern France cuisine

that have very similar

geographical conditions

and have very

similar ingredients,

and many similar techniques.

[Solomonov]

You cannot get more local

than foraging for wild

herbs in the hills

right near the restaurant.

I do this every week

just before we start to work

at the restaurant.

In the summertime,

I can find sumac,

which is a very

important spice for

cuisine around here.

It's acidic

in a very specific way.

We can use it as

a bouquet garni for stocks.

Marinate lamb with it,

which is what we're going

to do for this lunch.

And when you get it fresh,

it's very, very different.

[ben Zvi] I don't

use ingredients

that cannot grow here.

For example, I love

coconut milk,

but coconut milk does

not enter my kitchen,

because it takes people's

consciousness

to the beautiful

beaches of Thailand.

I want them here

in this land with lamb,

with olive oil,

with basilicum, with tomatoes.

And we're very lucky

to have our own organic

vegetable gardens

where we grow

a lot of our vegetables.

This is the lamb rack.

The lamb has been growing

around those mountains,

and it is organic as well.

We picked the sumac,

rinse it,

then rub it all in

and start cooking it.

-So just right in here?

-Yeah, right in there.

This is awesome because

the lamb is from here.

Olive oil from here.

The lamb probably

grazes on...

On sumac.

Well, yeah, I mean,

it's vegetation...

So we're really

trying to get this

as local as possible.

[ben Zvi] You should

understand that

it's a very small country,

so for Israel,

two hours' drive is

the other side of the world.

If we have to get ingredients

one hour from here, for example,

we don't have fish here,

we are in the mountains,

so for many years, I didn't

serve fish in the restaurant

because I said, for fish,

I have to travel

to the port in Tel Aviv.

It's 45 minutes from here.

It's not local.

Then I understood that I can be

a little bit more flexible,

and we started

serving also fish.

But this is

the farthest we go.

We are going to start

with a bit of cream

of sweet potato.

Beautiful.

This is steamed daikon.

Beautiful, and this is

all from here, or no?

Yes, of course. And leeks.

Every single bit

of this plate

is all within five

kilometers away.

Except for this salt,

which is sea salt.

That's the only thing

that's exported.

I brought this

from the Dead Sea!

No, that's a joke.

Still working on that.

-Help yourself.

-I'm doing it.

Mm!

[ben Zvi] When I opened

my restaurant 18 years ago,

I was very exotic.

Talking about local

ingredients was very exotic.

Now, even if you have

a restaurant in Tel Aviv,

you talk about

local ingredients.

Even if you have

a restaurant in Tel Aviv,

you drive half an hour,

you are in a farm

and you can buy

your local ingredients.

[Uri Jeremias]

I love Akko.

It is a very special city,

one of the oldest

cities in the world.

You've had your restaurant

for 25 years,

which is more than an eternity

in the restaurant world,

but you've also been

in Akko this entire time.

I remember the moment

I started cooking,

everybody

that I knew in Israel

would talk

about your restaurants.

First of all, you work

with local materials.

We have so many

kinds of local fish--

the sea bream,

the gray mullet, the grouper.

Beautiful fish.

My cuisine does not

belong to any section.

I cook only things

that I like to eat.

I never learned cooking, I've

never worked in any restaurant,

so I'm doing

my own thing.

Here we have

beautiful shrimp.

Wow, are these shrimp

all from here?

Yeah, these

are all local.

What kind

of shrimp are those?

This is tiger.

-This is blue sailor.

-Blue sailor crab?

Yeah, and the blue sailor

is an excellent crab.

-So sweet.

-Ah, unbelievable.

Wow! Yeah, I've never had it.

It's still moving, too.

Amberjack, rabbitfish.

Right.

Little groupers?

Yes. This is

the red shrimp.

Okay.

It has this

unbelievable sea taste.

-Wow.

-Ah, fresh anchovies.

Beautiful.

You see,

we take the skin off.

Yeah.

And you put just

a touch of salt on it.

Here, tell me when.

[speaking Hebrew]

-Goddamn it,

that is so good.

-Anyone wants to try?

Oh, my God,

that is so good.

Sometimes things

are so ingeniously made

by the Creator,

we don't have

to add too much.

[Solomonov] Oh, wow.

First of all,

you fry it shortly,

and then you put

the coconut milk on top.

You close the lid.

When you close the lid,

it is like steaming.

-Right.

-Yeah, so it's baking, steaming,

-and frying at the same.

-So a three-part--

you're doing three

types of cooking

for almost three minutes,

and that's it, right?

That's it, and then you

add the apples.

And the apples are sour,

and this is chili.

It's hot.

So when you eat the chili,

and then you eat the apple--

You're ready to go

for some more, right?

Mm, man.

That is delicious.

So my question to you is

what is Israeli cuisine?

It is a very hard

thing to say,

because Israel is built

from something like

187 representatives

-from different countries.

-Right.

All these things

have influence,

and until 15 years ago,

we made Moroccan food,

pulao from Persia...

pulao = rice

...and then the last 15 years,

we make a local mix,

which is Israeli food.

[Gur] In the '90s,

everything kind of happened

at the same time,

almost the same time--

the wine, the bread,

the olive oil.

Olive oil!

It's the symbol of the state

of Israel, olive branches,

but most Israelis,

especially of European origin,

didn't know the first

thing about olive oil.

When Israel was

founded a few decades ago,

that was a really

a hard, tough situation.

The country was poor,

the country was just

building itself,

so food as a lifestyle

was nonexistent.

And the cookbooks of the time

are very, very efficient,

like how to save money,

how to use leftovers,

how to make cheap, healthy,

and nutritious food.

That's it.

Up until the late '70s,

Israelis ate horrible food,

and it wasn't because they

were not talented in cooking.

It was because, first of

all, having fun was a sin,

and secondly, most Israelis

were not well-to-do,

so they did not

know what to look for,

or they could not afford

what they remembered

from the old country.

In the '80s, there

was an economic boom.

People started traveling,

people saw that outside,

it's lovely, and there

are good restaurants,

and food is being celebrated.

They came back

from abroad and said,

"We don't want this stupid,

modest life kind of bon ton.

We want to have great wonderful

time like Europeans,

Americans, and so on."

Said, "Well, we want

to enjoy life, too, you know?"

When people

went abroad, they realized,

well, it isn't so bad

to like food,

and Jews can

like food, too,

and we don't have

to feel guilty about it.

And a lot of the young

chefs went abroad,

and when they came back,

they started restaurants.

Nowadays, Israel,

I think I may even say,

is one of

the leading forces of,

of the new cuisine in the world,

because it combines

so many aspects

of new cooking,

because it has so many

people coming from India,

or from the States,

or from Morocco,

or from Russia or Tunis

or France, etc., etc.,

and making something together.

[Solomonov] You're a chef,

and you've been

a successful chef

for as long as I've cooked.

Most people associate a lot of

modern Israeli cooking with you,

and what you do,

and how does your ancestry

play a part into

the food that you cook?

The family of

my father arrived here

in 1907 from Syria and Iraq.

They arrived

with donkeys to Jerusalem.

My story with food

started when I was 12.

I needed to cook

to my family.

My mother was sick,

and I discovered that

I can do something

wonderful with food.

In '95, I opened Arcadia

in Jerusalem,

and the definition

of the kitchen was, like,

French-Mediterranean,

because I studied with

French chefs in New York,

in San Francisco.

But the story starts with

a cheese that you

cannot get in Israel,

was parmesan cheese,

because I needed

the cheese for the risotto.

And somebody told me,

"Listen, go to the mountains,

and you will meet

Mr. Shai Seltzer."

He gave me

the first cheese that

replaced the parmesan cheese,

and it was from here.

It was the beginning

to understand that,

you know, everything

is around me,

I should use my roots,

I should use my imagination,

I should cook my memories,

and that's the way

to create a local language.

Take

the Middle Eastern spices,

take the Middle East

rhythm, yeah,

and try to understand how you

create from that your food.

The eggplant that we see

here is also from our roots.

So you've got an eggplant

here that's charred.

Seems like where a lot

of recipes in Israel start,

right, with

a burnt eggplant?

Yeah, and there's

a nice story behind it.

I received

a beautiful, uh, letter.

He invited me to bring

my food to the north of Italy,

and to cook one week.

I said, "I'm going to cook

eggplants, lamb, and wheat."

When we arrived,

the supplier arrived,

and I saw that the eggplants

were with a little bit water.

So apparently, on the way,

somebody put it in the freezer,

so I told the supplier,

"Send it back."

The lady chef

of the place, you know,

she called immediately

the public relations and said,

"Listen, that

Israeli chef is rude.

We order for him especially

the eggplants

from Rome and Sicily."

So she said,

"You take some money,

you go the villages.

You arrange yourself."

We start to roast,

to burn the eggplant.

So she called once

again the public relations.

She said, "Listen!

He is completely mad.

After you gave him money

to buy new eggplants,

he's standing with his cook,

and he's burning

the eggplants."

That's great.

So that's

the eggplant carpaccio.

And if you take a fork,

yes, and you smash it,

at the end of the day,

that's the eggplant salad

of my mother that

I arrange on the plate.

-I'm gonna eat that,

is that okay?

-Eat. Please.

The essence of the Israeli

taste is lemon juice,

olive oil, and the liquids

from the vegetables.

This is the taste

that you miss after two,

three days when you go abroad,

and you just want to take

a piece of bread and dip it.

But that's the taste.

All right,

so we're going to make

some shakshuka today.

Shakshuka

Erez jump-started

the Israeli food revolution

in the '80s

with his artisanal bread.

Because of him, there's amazing

bread everywhere in Israel.

He lives just 800 meters

from the Lebanese border.

-You like hot stuff?

-Yeah, I love it.

-Okay, so you're going

to get it.

-Good. Good.

You know, it's 9:00

in the morning.

I should be eating

spicy food by now.

-Exactly.

-So I have a question.

-Shakshuka is

North African, right?

-Yes.

It's from Libya,

or Morocco?

By now,

shakshuka is one of

the Israeli staples

of breakfast.

Yes.

Is it now Israeli cuisine?

I think

it is Israeli cuisine.

Crude and hot

and lots of olive oil,

and you eat it with

the bread, and it's not stuffy.

We kind of took recipes

from the Palestinians,

and from the Turks,

and from the Bulgarians,

and we made it our own,

but it happens all

over the world, I think.

It does. It happens all over

the world with food.

But, I mean, when you go

to an Arab restaurant

around here or you're

eating Palestinian cuisine,

in this country,

is it Israeli food, then?

I think Israeli

and Palestinian is one thing.

Food is not political.

Food is, eh, what is grown

on this land by the people

who are living in it.

If they're called

Palestinians or Israelis,

I don't care.

I don't think the tomato

care if a Palestinian cut it,

or an Israeli guy cut it,

it's the same thing.

I would serve it with

goat, ricotta, bread,

and the Palestinian will serve

it with, eh, pita bread.

That's the only

difference.

-Wow, it's hot.

-Yeah, it is hot.

What kind of

pepper is that?

Eh, it's, eh...

I'm glad

I'm not the only one.

I've been trying to keep

myself from crying.

Wow.

Ten years from now,

what is Israeli food?

Regional,

regional, regional.

Big-time regional.

But Israel is the size

of, you know, New Jersey.

How different is the food all

the way in the south from here?

Very different.

Here, we have mostly goats.

In the south,

we have more sheep.

The olive oil

is different.

The use of lemon

juice is different.

The wild herbs

are different.

And the people

are different.

There's a huge misconception

that this is

just sort of this country,

like, in the Middle East.

There's palm trees

and sand and whatever.

The regions and the terroir,

from a food perspective,

are totally different.

You've got sort of

hot air in the south,

and you've got very cold,

sort of mountainous,

high elevation in the north.

You've got people fishing

in the Mediterranean,

and we've got people fishing

every single day

in the Kinneret,

in the Sea of Galilee.

[Avigail Aharon] My father was

a fisherman in the Kinneret.

When I was a little girl,

we'd go away to the Kinneret

to do fishing

and to make some picnics.

So I love the Kinneret,

and to cook the fruit

of the Kinneret.

And I cook just local food,

traditional Tiberianic food

in my kitchen.

This is the fish

that you caught today,

-this morning.

-Mm-hm. Yes.

We're going to make

St. Peter's fish.

So St. Peter's fish

is freshwater tilapia here.

Yes. We cook it in a traditional

sauce we make in Tiberias.

The Galilee is unique--

the fish and the Arab influence

that live in the area.

So if somebody

that grew up here was Arab

and Muslim, not Jewish,

and they ate this food,

would this remind them

of what they grew up with?

Yes. Yes, of course.

The Christian, the Muslim,

and the Jewish,

they make dinners together

so everybody learn

from another.

You put the fish inside.

Cool. Now the fish

is already cooked.

Yes, it already

cooks a few minutes,

-and it's ready.

-Great.

[Ronit Vered]

In the last 20 years,

with everything that is

going on around us, suddenly,

local chefs, Jewish chefs, from

Jewish origin, started to look,

and to discover

the Palestinian cuisine.

Fish of Galilee

you eat with your hands.

Perfect. I have two of

those, so I'm good, right?

[Offaim] At one point

in the mid-'90s,

this entire country

and this entire area

called the Middle East,

was in huge hope for change.

The peace process

was at its peak,

Rabin, our prime minister,

had not been murdered yet,

and everybody was

hoping for peace.

All of a sudden, Arab

restaurants started flourishing.

And Jews went to visit

their Arab neighbors,

and when I say neighbors,

I mean neighbors,

across the road,

whose food they've never

really tasted, and said,

"What are you eating at home?

What do you guys eat?

Not where the tourists eat,

where do the locals eat?"

And we've discovered

this incredible Palestinian

and Arabic kitchen.

-How are you?

-I'm good. I'm good.

I'm so happy

to eat some of this.

-Thank you.

-What are we making?

We are making

Palestinian food.

-Some keves? Some lamb.

-Yes, keves.

-Lamb.

-100-- It's all lamb.

-Just lamb.

-Just lamb. A lotta fat, eh?

So how many Jews

come to El Babor?

Here in El Babor,

here in the Umm al-Fahm,

it's, like, about 50-50 Arabic

and 50 Jewish.

[exclaiming]

So right now, you're putting

the kebabs on cinnamon sticks.

-Yes.

-Amazing.

[in Hebrew] If someone

says Palestinian food

and Israeli food,

what do you think

about that?

[in Hebrew]

The food is Palestinian.

This food came

before I was born,

before my father was born.

These recipes are

hundreds of years old.

[in English]

Food makes peace.

If you come to eat with me,

and if you come

to learn my food,

maybe it's going to

bring us all together.

That is our famous kebab.

We call that Kebab El Babor.

Great.

-Oh, my gosh.

-You can taste it.

Yeah, it's amazing.

The cinnamon is--

-Be careful. This is hot.

-It's very hot, huh?

It was a great time,

and then, the peace process,

unfortunately,

had gone into

a very deep slope,

and those celebrity chefs,

and celebrity restaurants

opened by Palestinians

were put aside a bit.

Everything has

to do with politics.

[in Arabic] In 2000, there

was another intifada here,

and the restaurants

constantly suffered.

Even today I'm suffering.

Now, in Arab restaurants,

every little political

event that happens,

the Jews stop coming.

Whenever you talk about

Israeli food in the world,

people immediately will start

talking about the conflict.

It makes the whole thing

much less marketable,

and every time

you approach it,

it turns into a debate.

And I truly believe that the way

to resolve that debate,

or maybe to help,

to negotiate, is through food.

[distant conversation]

[Solomonov]

It's tough to get a restaurant

off the ground anywhere.

If you're

a Palestinian in Israel,

it's even harder.

What are the challenges

of a Palestinian chef

in this country?

It's really hard to be

an Arabic chef

that you can shine your name

over your restaurant.

You worked

for Jewish Israelis,

and it was not

an issue, right?

It was an issue,

but I never feel it

between my circle of

people that I work with.

But maybe the outside market,

we will see it, yeah.

When you

are gonna be researching

or trying menu items,

do you start here?

I mean, in this kitchen?

Is this where it starts?

Actually, the whole idea

for me of cooking,

it starts from my mother's

and grandmother's kitchen.

My mother is going to make for

us today maqluba for dinner.

In English,

that means "upside down."

We cook it with chicken,

rice, and different types

of vegetables.

And we just turn it

upside down, and then we

have it for lunch.

-How long has she been

making this maqluba?

-[speaks Hebrew]

-[Kamel] Thirty-two years.

-[Solomonov] Thirty-two years.

Thirty-two years

she's been making it.

And how long have you

eaten the maqluba?

How old are you?

I'm thirty-three.

One year!

So I will help her

with removing the chicken.

I can smell a lot of spices

on the chicken.

There is kurkum,

there is turmeric,

also cinnamon.

Cinnamon.

She's going to make it

as layers.

She put the chicken

in the bottom of the pot.

It smells so, so good.

And the kurkum,

the way the turmeric

stains the rice

is fantastic.

How does she feel about you

being a chef and that you're

cooking this food?

She don't like me to be

in her kitchen a lot.

I know, she's, like,

maybe you'll find a wife

that's a doctor, right?

Now, Mike, this is

the most dangerous

and interesting part.

I love that,

I love danger.

This is where

we turn it over.

Can I help you out?

No, I prefer to do it

on my own, it's better.

I had my fingers crossed.

Oh, look at that.

Money!

Clean.

[Vered] In a way,

in the kitchen,

we want to be Arabs,

we want to be local,

we want to use

local ingredients.

We want to cook things that

are appropriate for this place.

[Jur] We looked

for inspiration

to our Arabic neighbors.

That's where our fascination

with hummus starts.

That's where we learned

to make our chopped salad,

which we now call

Israeli salad.

Israeli salad's

actually Arabic salad.

On the menus

of most restaurants,

it's still listed

as Arabic salad.

You have it throughout

the Middle East.

It's basically chopped salad

of cucumber, tomatoes,

onions, peppers,

and thymes,

simply dressed

with olive oil,

lemon juice,

and salt and pepper.

What makes it Israeli is

the way we use the salad,

because we may have learned

it from our Arab neighbors,

but they don't have

salad for breakfast.

We do, and we also

have it for lunch,

and we also

have it for dinner,

and we stuff it in

the pita with schnitzel,

and chips and French fries.

The Palestinians

don't really like to think

that Israeli cuisine

takes a lot of things

from their heritage,

from the local things.

They often accuse

us of stealing it,

something I can understand.

If you ask me, talking

about stealing

when it comes to kitchen

is not the right term.

You know, the beautiful

thing about kitchens

and the culture of food,

even before the globalization

of the modern world,

ingredients and techniques

and dishes travel,

and that's the beauty of it.

But I completely

understand,

in light

of the political issues,

why they accuse

us of stealing,

and why they are

so touchy about it,

and why they

feel like this.

[in Arabic] There was arrogance

among the Jews

in relation

to Arab cuisine.

"What is that, anyway?

The Arab kitchen is nothing."

That was the arrogance

in the '60s, '70s,

even the '80s.

The falafel is ours,

the maqluba is ours,

the hummus is ours.

What do you have?

Where is it from?

Where is your maqluba from?

Where is your hummus from?

From where?

Where is the kitchen that

you call the Israeli kitchen?

Where is it?

Let's create an Israeli

kitchen together! Come!

Take those raw ingredients

and make what you want.

Come! Let's join hands

and work together!

We say that food

brings hearts together,

but you don't want to.

We try here

to collaborate

with Arab chefs,

Palestinian chefs,

and create a new language

through our food

in the restaurant,

and maybe

to grow from there.

But it's only the beginning,

and we have a long way to go.

Is it going

to happen in your lifetime?

Probably not. No.

I think that

what you find in Israelis

is an amazing mixture

of sweetness,

and... and brutality.

Now this is why

we are called sabras.

The idea of the sabra fruit,

of the prickly pear,

is that from the outside,

it can kill you,

because it has these thorns

that are really,

really, really painful

when you meet them.

But from the inside,

it's colorful and sweet,

and I do think

that this combination

is very true and very right.

[Rousso] You don't

take life for granted.

Living in Israel, you

can't take life for granted.

It's been on risk since I was

born, since Israel was born.

For example, I used to work

in the center of Tel Aviv

when I was 18, during

all the terrorist attacks,

and I just missed a bus.

I missed so many bombs,

I was supposed to be there.

Every Israeli will

tell you that.

There is

no tomorrow in Israel.

There is no tomorrow.

People cannot plan even

for one year ahead.

They feel that if they

will not do it right now,

then it will exist

in that moment,

it will not be.

In other countries,

they're thinking about

the days that

they will be old.

Here, you cannot imagine

that you will be old.

We're on the border

of Lebanon in the north.

This is the site of

my brother's death.

He was a 21-year-old kid.

My brother was

in the military.

He was inside of Israel

defending a border,

and was shot,

and died doing that.

And it happened to be

three days before his release.

It happened to be

on Yom Kippur,

when we're all taught that

God closes the Book of Life.

It's important for

my family to be here,

because it's the ten-year

anniversary of his death.

I've got a son now named

after my brother, David,

and I've got a wife,

and we've got

friends of Dave's,

and friends of mine,

and I think that this

is a special place.

I think that,

subconsciously,

I started cooking

more Israeli cuisine,

or using Israeli influences,

and some people might even say

Yemenite influences,

Sephardic influences.

It wasn't, like,

abruptly Israeli.

I wasn't making,

like, chopped salad,

or doing Israeli breakfast

or anything like that,

but things started to end up

on the menu that were things

that I loved

here and ate here.

And in my restaurant...

we made a case, I think,

for Israel through food.

[man] We are in Ein Rafa.

It's a very small village.

It's about 900 people,

Muslim.

One Jewish.

The only

Jewish woman here.

You have, like,

two Jewish people now.

And we didn't marry,

of course, until now.

We've lived together

for 18 years.

Of course,

their parents was so upset

because it's-- she has to be

Muslim, I have to be Jewish.

When the children came,

they said, "Okay." That's it.

Children

make peace with everybody.

My mother told me stories

about Morocco,

that she

lived next to Arabs.

They were best friends.

And it was different.

But here, it's...

I meet Jewish all the time

because we work in the hotel,

kibbutzim,

Katsubah and Ketanavim

and Jerusalem,

so we know what is Jewish.

So it was easy for me

to meet Michal.

It's normal,

not so difficult.

When I came to Jerusalem,

it was after army,

in the army, and I've

been all over Gaza.

I was a paramedic.

And I know Arab

just at war, you know?

But I came to Jerusalem,

and I started to hear

the language.

And I started to work with

students from this village,

and they really hug me.

It was like, you know, wow!

It was different.

The first meal that

I ate in this village,

it was amazing.

This was the first time

that I ate Arabic food.

Labneh, olive oil--

I will never forget it.

A bread that her mother,

laffa that her mother made.

Tomatoes.

Melafefon--

cucumbers, that's it.

And I was like, wow.

How do you go

from that experience

to what you do now?

I understood that

it's supposed to be

very simple and fresh.

And we need to make everything,

and we need to grow everything.

Because this

is the connection.

This is the difference.

It was very difficult

in the beginning

because when people came,

they asked, "This is

an Arab restaurant?"

And I was, you know,

standing like this.

"I don't know. Let's roll."

You know?

And they said, "Okay,

where is the hummus?"

-"Where is falafel?"

-"I don't have hummus, honey."

"Where is the shish kabab?

Where is the hummus?"

And we always explain

"Arab food, it's not

only hummus."

When they asked me,

"What is your food?"

I said, "Really,

really, this is me."

Where I come from,

my Moroccan, you know,

my mother, what she made,

what my father made,

and Yacob and his mother made.

Do you get

to learn from his mother?

Yes, they send us

food sometimes.

You cook what you eat

and you breathe and you see.

You can look on my plate

and you can taste the...

what is Michal, you know?

This is what I know to do.

[Ruth Baks]

Israeli food is evolving

because of the people here,

because you can't separate

the land of Israel

from the people of Israel.

Only in Israel you're

gonna find a Moroccan Jew

marrying a Polish Jew,

or a Russian

marrying a Hungarian,

or an American

married an Iraqi.

So do they serve

gefilte fish,

or do they serve chraime

on Friday night?

chraime = fish stew

Hopefully, hopefully, chraime.

I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.

You're saying,

but there is a...

What happens

in those kitchens?

So tell me about yourself.

Where are you from?

I grew up

in south of Tel Aviv.

The people there

were from all over,

like Bulgaria

and Turkey, Ashkenaz.

So basically,

there are two Jewish heritages:

Sephardic and Ashkenazi.

Sephardic Jews come from

Spain, North Africa,

and the Middle East.

Ashkenazi Jews are from

Germany, Russia, Poland,

and the rest of

Eastern Europe.

And the neighborhood,

it was open space for everyone.

I mean, I could

come from school,

and go to eat with

my neighbor in his place.

It wasn't a big issue.

You just walk in

and sit and eat.

So I think I got experience

with a lot of taste of

kitchens of all over,

but my mother, for me,

is the cooking school.

My mother originally, she's from

the border of Turkey and Syria.

When she was

nine years old,

an Ashkenaz woman asked her

if she want to work, to clean,

and she cleaned the house,

but she studied to

cook Ashkenaz food,

like gefilte fish, kneidlach.

-Chopped liver.

-Yeah, chopped liver.

And on Rosh Hashanah

and Pesach,

we used to eat Ashkenaz food

and Turkish food together.

It was crazy.

So everything I based

on her knowledge,

and what she gave me to eat.

For example, this one

is a white tuna

that I put in

saltwater for two days,

and then I clean the skin.

I fillet everything,

and we eat it with sour cream

and horseradish and potato.

-This is very Ashkenaz.

-Absolutely.

This is kind of like

pickled herring. So simple.

Yes. I don't put any green.

If they want to put green,

I cut the finger off them.

Don't...

You mean greens,

like, to garnish.

It's instinct

to put something.

Why? No need.

It's so beautiful.

Clean, white.

I think this is

modern Israeli cuisine, right?

-So you're Kurdish-Turkish

born in Tel Aviv, right?

-Yes.

And you're doing

a play on gefilte fish,

-but using white tuna.

-Yeah.

-Right?

-Yeah.

So this is

Israeli cuisine, right?

I hope so.

I hope so.

[Vered] In Israel,

part of the problem is

this really intense relation

between Ashkenazi

and Sephardic.

There's a lot of tension here,

because in the first

years of the state,

what Sephardic used to say

that Ashkenazi is

like the majority.

Ashkenazi, in a way, decided

how this state should look,

that it should

be more European,

that even the education,

the culture,

everything is more

Western than Eastern.

Of course, the kitchen,

like everything else

that has to do with culture,

is a part of it.

In a way, when they

started to build

the new Israeli kitchen

in the last 30 years,

it was really easy in

the beginning to take things

from the Sephardic kitchen

and the Sephardic community,

because Sephardic food is

like Spain from the beginning,

then Turkey, Egypt, Morocco,

Iraq, North Africa.

So it's more exotic to

cook something spicy.

The food looked a bit more

attractive than Ashkenazi food.

And I think it has

to do with the image

that we all had about

Polish or Eastern-European,

Ashkenazi kitchen,

which was really bad.

Because all the stuff,

or most of the stuff

that made these cuisines

the Polish, Russian,

Ukrainian, sexy,

like wild berries, goose fat,

wild mushrooms,

were nonexistent in the Israel

of the '50s and the '60s.

So, as opposed to Moroccan

homemakers or Iraqi homemakers,

who at least knew how

to source the spices

and ingredients

and to work with them,

Ashkenazi cooks created

some very pale

and miserable version

of the real thing,

and that's what gave Ashkenazi

cooking in Israel such bad name,

because in Israel,

when you say Polish cooking,

it's another way of saying

bland, boring,

guilt-ridden kind of food.

[Vered]

Only now, young chefs

that are from Ashkenazi origin

start to cook Ashkenazi dishes,

and a little bit putting

some Ashkenazi influence

and inspiration

to the new Israeli kitchen.

My grandfather

and my grandmother

-fled Poland in 1935.

-1935.

Something like that.

This is cured fish,

herring from the North Sea.

We get it by

the barrel, okay?

It's nothing that was

invented in Israel.

This is more tied up

to the culinary traditions

of my grandfather

and my grandmother.

That's what they used to eat.

-It's pickled herring, right?

-It's pickled herring.

It's called, in Hebrew,

dag maluach,

and I took it and building

on these memories,

I developed this dish.

I make an aioli

flavored with dashi,

which is completely Japanese.

That's something that

I encountered in the U.S.

I called it Ashkenazi

pickled purple onion,

and it gives the dish

some sweetness.

That's how my grandmother

used to, to cook onions.

She used to cook

all the onions, all the time.

Many onions. I mean,

you don't have Jewish cuisine

without an onion, for me.

So does

this define your cuisine?

I don't know.

I try not to

define my cuisine,

because once you

define something,

you have limits

and boundaries to it, okay?

Yeah, it's so buttery.

[Gur] If you

look at Israel today,

you still find cooks who still

make basically original,

Jewish, Ashkenazi food.

But in a generation or so,

I'm afraid a great part

of it will be gone.

We're talking about

grandmothers' cooking,

labor-intensive food

that modern, busy cooks

do not necessarily

have time for,

and don't really

know how to make.

[Shmil Holland] This is

the typical Jerusalem kugel.

This is awesome, man,

and the top is super crusty.

Yes, and all around.

In Jerusalem, Shmil Holland

knows where to find

the best

Orthodox Jewish food.

He's afraid traditional

Ashkenazi cooking

will disappear, like kugel.

Now the classic noodle kugel

has never been my favorite,

and when I heard that

Shmil boils the noodles

for 40 minutes in milk...

I honestly wanted to leave.

We will make a kugel.

It's, more even

than gefilte fish,

the most Jewish,

it's the Jewish food.

The beginning of

my interest in Jewish food

was my grandmother.

She came from Poland

after the Holocaust.

She didn't cook

at all here.

When my grandfather died,

she was afraid

to sleep in her house,

because, you know,

the Holocaust,

everything comes back.

So, I was 16,

and she came to our house and

sleep with me in the same room.

So at night, we spoke.

She told me about

the life in Poland.

I heard about all

the kugels, everything,

but I never saw it

because she never cook.

She lived on the memories,

you know, the memories

before the war.

You know, I make it in

my grandmother's tradition way

to separate the eggs.

She make it like this.

Yeah, I used to do it

like that,

but then I worked

for a pastry chef

that would cut my fingers

off if I ever do that.

Okay, so we're going to

get the sugar and the butter

that's sort of caramelizing,

almost caramelizing...

Yeah, a little bit.

Do you cook

only Ashkenazi?

No! No,

I cook all kinds of food.

But I love

the Ashkenazi kitchen.

Well, when I think of

Ashkenazi food,

I think of, like, blintzes

or boiled chicken.

-Ugh, yeah, I know.

-It's gotten a bad rap.

Because that's

more an immigrant kitchen.

In Poland, they put inside

the raspberries and blueberries,

-and...

-Fresh.

Fresh, because there,

you have it fresh.

-I think it's ready.

-It smells great.

Wow, and it looks not

at all like noodle kugel

that we're used to.

Look at that piece.

Mhm, it's delicious.

I thought the noodles

would end up being really mushy,

but you can actually taste

them a little better like this.

I think that this is

a great example

of interesting

Ashkenazi cuisine.

And I'm partially responsible.

I have an Israeli restaurant.

I focus on Sephardic food.

Twenty,

15 years ago,

eh, chefs recognized

that we have a treasure,

and we can use

our tradition of cooking,

like, from Kurdistan

and from Morocco and from Iraq.

Everybody has its own

traditional dishes.

Shmil's noodle kugel

actually blew me away.

So guess what?

I'm putting kugel on

the menu at Zahav.

[Gur] In the beginning,

the children of immigrants

were sort of embarrassed

about the food of their parents,

as often happens with immigrants

everywhere in the world,

because the kids get absorbed

and adjust very easily.

The woman I worked with told

me about amazing sweetmeat

called luzina coming from Iraq

made from dried quince,

that is really delicious,

and her mother would make it,

and she would

encourage her daughter

to give it to her friends,

and she never did,

because she didn't want them

to know that she is Iraqi.

My parents

came from Uzbekistan,

and my mother

obviously cooked,

today, I know, wonderful

Uzbeki food.

But as kids, we didn't

appreciate it at all.

All the kids in

the neighborhood,

which came from

different origins,

we all kind of were embarrassed

from our mothers' cooking,

because we thought it was kind

of archaic and not modern,

and it was not

the new Israeli stuff

that we imagined and wanted.

Even for us, the people who

are doing food as a business,

it took us a while

to understand

we don't really

need to go that far

to find exciting

and amazing cuisines,

because we had them all over.

We have much more choices

than our mother had.

Take the local ingredients,

which are amazing.

Like, we have

an amazing olive oil,

fantastic vegetables

and fruits.

We have the best tomatoes

on Earth today, really.

And we invented

the cherry tomatoes,

and you can get them anywhere

and we have an amazing variety,

and they're the best ever.

I heard a rumor

that the cherry tomato

was developed here

in Israel. Is that true?

The rumor said

that it is developed by

-Moshe Dayan, do you know?

-Yeah, the eye patch.

When he was

Agriculture Minister,

in order to export

from Israel.

Where are we

right now?

Well, we are in

Kadesh Barnea.

It is a village in

the south and upper Negev.

Actually, we are just on

the border with Egypt.

-How far away are

we from Egypt?

-200 meters.

Yeah? I could

throw a baseball.

What is going on

above here?

In order to

get cherry on the vine

like you see here,

grow for two years.

You can grow it.

And it grows and grows.

Now it's only the beginning,

you see, it's only two meters.

After one-and-a-half year,

we grow it for about 36 feet.

You can grow it

as much as you want.

-36 feet?

-Yeah.

That means that the plant

that you see here... the root...

if you will come

in about six months,

you will see that I pick

it over there.

Six, seven meters.

-So you're running

36 feet this way.

-Yeah.

Years ago, you can manufacture

three tons per dunam.

-Now, we can make up to 30.

-Amazing.

Dunam = 1/4 acre

We irrigate them

with a salty water.

This is very unique

to this area.

Beneath all the Negev,

there's a huge tank of

salty, thermal, mineral water.

We send it to

a desalination factory,

then it's come back

like freshwater.

If I want it to be

much more sweet,

I raise the level of salt.

Last year, they make a test

here with 100% salty water.

People cannot eat the tomato,

it was so sweet.

There are levels,

it's called bricks.

Coca-Cola is about 11.

We get 18, the level.

People eat it and throw it.

You had a tomato that beat

Coca-Cola in sweetness?

I have to taste that tomato.

Do you have any here?

-No, the test failed.

-Oh, my God.

I mean, we tried to make

the best sweet cherry...

You know, in America,

that would be

off the charts. You know?

With a big Coca-Cola?

They would sell it!

A really overly sweet tomato...

And it's not just tomatoes

that grow like this.

Eggplants and peppers

grow this way, too.

But modern methods don't

have to be new methods.

These are

Israeli cheeses, right?

I don't know.

I don't know if

it is really Israeli,

because I believe

in cheese art,

because to make cheese,

it is like to paint.

You take bacteria,

different bacteria,

and you put them together,

and then you add them in a milk,

in a clean milk.

And you get such wonderful

things because of that.

All right,

well, let's eat some cheese.

What's so intriguing

about this is that

the aging process when

you put it into a cave

that was here for

thousands of years,

you know,

from the Second Temple Period,

-in aging it, it's not, um...

-The cave is very important

because the cave has

a lot of bacteria.

The rock

has a lot of bacteria,

and we cannot find them

in different world.

These are the same cheese,

the same beginning,

the same batch.

With one, one we finished,

we make a finish

in a Spanish way,

that is, with olive oil.

So you

soak it in olive oil, right?

Yes.

Now, this is the same one,

but it's also with olive oil,

but after it,

we put it in a vacuum.

The bacteria

will not have air,

so they work differently

in the cheese.

So if there's less bacteria

that's anaerobic bacteria,

the cheese is sort of not

maturing after that, right?

No, no, they mature,

but it's different in

anaerobic and aerobic.

This is with air,

and this is without air.

Here, you have

to take it in two hands.

-So same cheese?

-But different way of finish.

-Eat this one first, correct?

-No, this one.

-This one first, okay.

-And chew it good.

That gives us a taste.

-Now you can see

what happens to it.

-I am.

-They taste totally different.

-The same!

Completely different.

-I want another one of this.

-You can have everything

that you want.

I'm going to eat

all of it. Thank you.

[Israel Aharoni] The Middle East

is the origin of olive oil.

Don't make the olive tree cry.

Do it gently.

Do it gently.

Sorry, olive tree.

Even the Italians have

a wonderful olive oil,

just because the Romans took

the olive trees back to Italy

when they were here, yeah!

About 35 years ago,

you couldn't buy

any olive oil in Israel.

Except for the Arabs,

of course, but the newcomers?

They had no idea about

the treasure they had.

And the funniest thing is

that olive oil became

popular in Israel,

not because it's

our historical product,

but because Italian food

became in fashion,

and then, we rediscovered

the olive oil.

[Solomonov] You always hear

that Israel is so small,

it's the size of New Jersey.

You can drive from Eilat,

all the way in the south,

and snorkel in the Red Sea,

and drive to the north

and go skiing,

which is absolutely true.

We were in Akko

eating raw shrimp.

Don't tell my mom.

Just kidding.

We were eating in Akko,

and we were eating

raw shrimp and crab,

really just pulled from

the sea earlier that morning.

And now, we've gone

to the absolute desert,

where nothing should be growing,

and there is so much.

We are in the valley

of Ezuz in the Negev.

This is the orchard.

There is like a peach,

a nectarine and plum

and almond,

and there is apricot,

and apple, pears--

many, many kinds,

and also variety.

In the peach,

we have seven kind.

Are you an organic farmer?

I'm not in the organization,

but I don't give nothing.

Zero spray.

Zero, zero, zero!

But zero.

This is something

I've never seen before,

and I've spent a lot

of time in orchards.

What are we looking at here?

These brick terraces?

Stone terraces.

The stone terraces,

we use the system

of the Nabateans.

Ancient people

used to farm here,

in a system of collecting

the floodwater.

When there's a strong rain,

it comes the flood.

And when you have the flood,

you have a lot,

a lot of water in the valleys.

They go down to the valleys.

How many times

a year does it flood?

It can be two times

to six times,

but it can be zero.

Does the water,

when it floods,

does it get as high

as we are standing?

No, when the floodwater

comes from the stairs,

and then it fills it,

and it fills it up

to the height of the trees,

from these hills.

And when it

gets to this height,

the stairs of

the next one will put it

to the next one, and go.

Fill one, go to the next.

Fill one, go to the next.

We have seven fields

like this.

And this only

happens because of the soil,

because there's so much clay

in the soil, right?

Yeah, yeah.

The soil is a lot of clay.

Here, the land

saves the water.

For one year, two years--

it's been saved.

In the season, we cover

all the lines with the net.

-Oh, so the flies

don't get in.

-Yeah.

-So you just take a bite.

-Yeah.

All the fruit is

this kind of taste.

Very strong taste.

It's natural.

You feel the natural,

and you feel the love.

You can feel it.

You tell me.

-I do.

-Okay.

It's amazing.

I've never had guava

like this before.

What kind of

grapes are these?

This is Muscat.

It's weird.

I don't know, this tastes

more fruity or something.

The taste of the fruit

is more concentrated.

In the supermarket,

it's big, it's beautiful,

but no taste of fruit.

Here, it's not big,

not beautiful, but a lot

of taste of fruit.

Did you pick this location

because of the history

that it had here with flooding?

It used to be here,

Nabatean terraces

in the ancient time.

So we are in Avdat,

which was the one of the main

cities, or the capital city,

of the Nabatians.

The Nabatian culture

started 2,300 years ago,

around the 4th century B.C.

One of their main ways of

making money of their factories

was a wine industry.

This is a wine press.

It's just about

1,700 years old.

I think it's one of

the biggest one we can see.

All around us,

there were vineyards,

and horses and carriages

and donkeys and men

used to come up the hill

with the fresh-picked grapes,

and put them into

these platforms.

Here is where you would

crush the, the grapes.

Would they literally

step on the grapes?

Were there a lot of people

here that would step on grapes?

Yeah. From here,

it would either go

inside this tunnel,

or in here through

this hole,

which is where the fermentation

used to take place.

So, by looking at this size,

this is actually similar

to a pretty modern winery.

We can imagine

the amount of wine

that came out of this place.

With the first

Muslim occupation of this area

in the 7th and 8th centuries,

from the Byzantine emperors,

obviously Muslims prohibited

the usage of alcohol,

and they had destroyed

the alcohol industry,

which was mainly wine.

So, in Israel,

the wine industry had ceased to

exist from the 7th century,

up until the late 19th century,

20th century,

when the Jews have returned.

They have returned

with a lot of money

coming from

Baron de Rothschild,

who was

an enthusiastic Zionist.

He sent over

his counselors from France,

and they brought their varieties

to be planted in Israel,

and they tried

to create French wine.

They made

wines that were mediocre.

Little by little,

these wines became dreadful.

Thirty-five years ago,

Israeli entrepreneurs

who have traveled

the new world...

America, Napa Valley,

and Australia,

and discovered Shiraz and

Cabernet and Cabernet Franc,

came back to Israel and put

the vines in the ground,

and they waited

long enough and they said,

"We don't care about tons.

We care about quality."

While we were

a one-winery nation

up until the early '80s,

now we have more

than 300 boutique

and garage wineries.

Israeli wines are being

very highly appreciated.

You have Old World wines

like the wineries of Carmel.

And you have

New World wines--

great wines,

robust, powerful.

Some of them Israeli--

rude, in-your-face

wines, lovely wine.

[Tal Pelter] Everything starts

from very, very good grapes,

and a good place

to grow grapes

is up here in the Golan.

I think it's the best

wine region in Israel,

and, my opinion, one of

the best in the world.

Because we're up high,

we have maturity every year,

can grow almost

any variety here.

We're pressing a Cabernet.

It's now in

its third week on skins.

It has really strong acidity.

Very low pH.

Very good color.

-I don't drink, actually.

-You don't?

-I'm not a drinker.

-Why not?

I'm allergic.

I break out in handcuffs

and police cars when I drink.

I definitely appreciate

good wine, you know.

Obviously, you're going

to be doing the drinking.

[Amir Savig] We are

producing this year

getting close to

two million bottles.

Ten years ago,

40,000 or 50,000.

That's amazing.

At the moment,

we're selling close to 90%

on local market,

and ten percent is exported.

[Solomonov] Usually, Israeli

wine is in the kosher section

of the liquor store

in the States.

You know, you have Argentina,

you have France,

Spain is now obviously

having a moment, too.

Then there's no Israeli wine,

there's kosher wine.

That could be kosher

from California,

it could be freaking

Manischewitz,

and then you also have stuff

that you guys are serving,

which is rated 94, 95, 96

on Parker, you know?

How do you break

that stereotype

that Israeli or Jewish wine is

sweet and cooked and disgusting?

[David Montefiore]

Start by trying to explain

the difference

between what all kosher

wine used to be,

and kosher today.

There's no difference

in the way it is made,

than the way top wine from top

Bordeaux château is made.

The winemaking is

exactly the same.

The key element is

the fact that a religious,

Sabbath-keeping Jew

is the man who needs to be

in actual contact with...

-And not even this guy!

-Not even this guy!

Not even the winemaker.

I'm not

allowed to touch the wine.

If you observe the Sabbath,

you could?

Yes, yes. Definitely.

That's the key factor.

But very few winemakers

do it.

I would say the demographics

now in Israel

are probably

80% nonreligious people,

and so, people will do

everything on a Saturday.

Of course, of course.

But what about

in this winery?

On Shabbat, does

everything stop here?

Shabbat = the Sabbath

Yes,

completely locked and shut.

Like a kosher

restaurant, right?

All the ovens

have to get turned off,

everybody leaves. Crazy.

Same on all

Jewish holidays.

Most of them are

during the harvest.

We have some ways

of technologically

going around this.

A lot of stuff is being done

automatically when we are gone.

So is it frustrating

that you can't do this yourself?

No, you get used to it.

It was difficult

at the beginning.

But I'm used to

having my hands in my pockets

when I'm here.

-Cheers.

-L'chaim.

Kosher means "proper"

in Hebrew.

Kosher dietary laws have been

observed by religious Jews

for thousands of years.

With kosher food,

you have rules.

You may not cook

dairy with meat,

you may not have

certain kinds of seafood,

you may not have pork,

you may not have

this kind of meat

and that kind of meat.

The number of

Orthodox religious Jews

compared to secular Jews

in Israel is very small,

but they have a lot

of political power,

so, in a way, they managed to

make laws and regulations

that forbids people like

me, secular people,

to raise, to eat, to sell,

for example, pork.

You can't import prosciutto

or jamón to Israel...

jamón = ham

...'cause naturally,

the meat of pork

is never kosher,

which is, of course, a big

tragedy if you're a food lover.

Take steaks.

If you want a steak

to be kosher,

you have to take

all the blood,

or the juice, out of it,

because the blood is the soul,

and the soul should not be in

the animal when you eat it.

[Nathan] You have

to have a ritual slaughterer

who will just use a knife

quickly to get rid of the blood

as quickly as

possible, and you salt it,

and you put

cold water on it,

as it's said in the Bible.

Most people think you've

got to have it overcooked,

so it's not red, but it's

not necessarily the blood

that's still in there

that's red, it's rare.

I think the problem is

the just overcooking,

and it's pretty awful,

but it doesn't have to be.

Judaism

has a lot of paradoxes.

One of them is that we have

to eat very well,

festive food,

on Shabbat,

and at the same time,

you are not allowed to cook,

because cooking is working,

and you're not allowed to work;

you have to rest.

So, come on, guys, how are

we supposed to eat very well,

festive food,

the best food of the week,

on Saturday, if we are

not allowed to cook?

Shabbat was very important

to the Jewish cuisine,

because when people

set in the diaspora

in different communities,

what made them different

from their neighbors

were the Shabbat

and the kosher laws.

Because they had

to preserve the Shabbat,

not to light fire and all

kinds of religious regulations,

they developed

a lot of dishes.

[Aharoni] All these

different ethnic cuisines

had to come

up with the food,

and more than one,

that you can start cooking

on Friday afternoon,

before the Shabbat comes in,

and it should stay

on the stove,

or in the oven

or whatever method you chose,

like, 16 hours.

So, actually,

we have an amazing,

colorful, flavorful mosaic

of cuisines in Israel.

All the people

that have ended up here

from wherever they have,

because essentially this

entire place is transient,

bringing with them

all their cuisines

and all their cultures

and all of their tradition,

and, to some, that's kosher,

to some, that's not kosher.

I think that some people are

going to hang onto the food

that their grandparents

have brought with them,

or the food that they

had in different countries

before Israel existed

is going to be the thing

you find on their Shabbat

table every single Friday.

We're gonna make

traditional couscous today,

which is both Tunisian

and Moroccan and what else?

-Libyan.

-Libyan. Algerian.

French.

Yeah, everything

that comes western to Israel,

they make couscous.

And this is the Moroccan

side of the family.

-Your family's from Morocco?

-I'm also from Morocco.

-You were born in Morocco?

-Yes.

Do you do

this for Shabbat normally?

We grew up with Tunisians.

And in Tunisia,

Friday without couscous

is not Shabbat.

Couscous is really hard to make.

It takes a really long time.

It's not hard, it's only

a long time because it's

cooked on steam.

I've heard

some people say

that you need to steam

it two times.

Yes, this is

the second time.

All right.

So all the vapor

and all the smells

from the vegetables

season the couscous, as well.

Yes.

[Tsabari]

Around 5:00 or 6:00,

everybody gathers around,

and lights

the candles for Shabbat.

It's a way to bring

Shabbat into your house,

and into yourself, as well.

Right after

lighting the candles,

you're supposed to start

the ceremonies for Shabbat.

Baruch atah,

Adonai Eloheinu,

Melech haolam,

asher kid'shanu

b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu

l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat.

For whoever keeps Shabbat

for religious people,

from the second

you light the candles,

or from the second

Shabbat enters,

you're not allowed

to do any work at all--

not lighting the fire,

not speaking on your phone,

not lighting a cigarette,

not cooking food.

For the next 24, 25 hours,

you are just resting.

Studying.

You're supposed to.

Studying,

supposed to study, yes.

[Hovav] Shabbat should

be a lovely day of rest,

and of celebrating

your family and your values,

and your culture and whatever

you find dear to you.

I guess that

if you're religious,

it may be that

this is what you do.

For myself, as a secular Jew

who used to live in Jerusalem,

Shabbat was oppression.

During Shabbat, businesses

are closed by law.

So if you're stuck

without tomato paste,

you cannot get it.

There is no public

transportation.

Cinemas are closed.

Et cetera,

et cetera, et cetera.

So this is why many secular

Jews moved from Jerusalem,

which is more

religious, to Tel Aviv,

which is a fun, free city.

I celebrate Shabbat

in other ways.

Shabbat is a lovely day

to be with my daughter

and my partner.

[Nathan] There's

a beautiful sense of family

in this country.

When you say a chevrah,

which means, like...

chevrah

...a group of friends,

it's a big deal in Israel.

First of all, people

were in the army,

they were in school together,

they live within walking

distance of each other,

and they all see

their parents once a week.

They want to be

together every Shabbat,

every Friday night.

[group singing] Shalom Aleichem,

mal'achei hasharet

mal'achei elyon.

Mimelech mal'achei

ham'lachim Hakadosh

baruch Hu.

[Vered] For secular people,

Shabbat means big dinners

or big get-together

of the families.

Even if we're not religious,

the thing about Jewish

mothers still works.

The Jewish mother wants

all her sons and daughters

and family to be

around her at Shabbat,

and we still do that.

[Solomonov] So you have

the wild squash, pumpkin,

chickpeas, celery.

Chickpeas, potatoes, celery.

[Tsabari]

On Friday evening,

we would always sit,

the whole family together,

and this was almost

a sacred ceremony.

If somebody was missing

the feast of Shabbat,

something really seriously

had to go wrong.

-Please, some generosity.

-How about that?

Here, have a potato.

[Vered] For us, the reality

in American television

where the family gets

together just on Christmas

and Thanksgiving

is very weird.

[Solomonov] Your mom

learned from her mom,

who learned from her mom,

who's making it

back in Morocco,

way back in the day before there

was ever an established

state of Israel

and brought it here,

and we get to eat it now,

made a little more terrible

than your mom

normally makes it,

'cause it was made

with my hands,

but that's what makes

it taste so good.

That's the richness of it.

-That's why I think

it tastes so good.

-I agree with you.

[Vered] I think it

has to do, in a way,

with the whole culture--

small country,

everybody has to stick together,

it's us against the world.

This tradition has

a lot of negative things,

but it has also some

positive things.

This relation that

you have with your family,

and the bigger family,

I think this is

one of the nicest aspects

of being Israeli.

Enjoy.

[Solomonov]

Israeli cuisine grew

from traditions

that were brought here,

and also born here.

How long have you

had this spice shop?

Four hundred years.

-It's been in your

family 400 years?

-Yes.

In Nazareth,

Julie Zaher,

a Christian Arab,

makes amazing tehina...

tehina = tahini

...the crucial

ingredient in hummus

and so many other dishes.

Where does

all this come from?

The sesame seeds

are from Ethiopia.

It's a very good kind.

Its name is Humera.

It's a very sweet sesame.

Our drying is

a very special kind.

We dry by steam.

So it's

very gentle, then?

Yes, it's a very

old-fashioned way.

We dry very slow,

slow motion.

The Muslim-Arab

Mahroum family

has been making sweets in

Nazareth for four generations.

And new food traditions

arrive every day.

Bye.

Shabbat Shalom. Hi.

Hi. So I wanna order something.

What do I order here?

Um, you order

traditional Georgian food.

I want this one

with the egg on it.

-What's it called?

-Acharuli.

-Acharuli?

-Yes.

Awesome.

Oh, my gosh, is that butter?

It is.

All right, so a little

yeast dough, a little cheese.

I could eat this

every morning.

Five years ago,

here in Jerusalem,

there was really

nowhere to eat.

There were a few places that

were old and sort of classic,

and then, there

were street places.

But now, we see all

these chefs emerging,

and people are really embracing

not only Israeli cuisine,

but these little

nuance of cuisines.

People have always

come to Jerusalem

to visit the holy sites.

And today, they're

coming for dinner.

The hot restaurant

Machneyuda

literally took

the name of this market,

which for so long

was sleepy and quiet.

It was a place that you would

come and shop for produce.

Now, it's where

hipsters drink coffee,

it's where people hang out.

It's a scene that could not

have existed five years ago.

[Granit] I was born

in Jerusalem, lived

my whole life in Jerusalem.

I love the city,

I love eating in it

and cooking in it,

so my food will be

always related somehow.

As a young cook,

and as a chef,

I was here all the time

asking questions--

"What's that? What's that?

What's the best season

for this?"

And naturally, as I moved

ahead in the kitchen

and became a chef,

all the time,

my menus were from here.

Going to the market,

picking up stuff,

and a few minutes

later cooking it.

What percentage of the stuff

in your restaurant comes

from this market?

I think, let's say

the vegetables and herbs

are almost a hundred percent.

[speaks Hebrew]

What's going on, Haim?

Haim is like our

special vegetable guy.

Awesome.

Usually he gets

really special stuff,

and he works with these

small growers,

like,

small Arabic growers

that bring him stuff

from the villages

or from their gardens.

So you can

find some really...

Some nice

organic stuff, huh?

Yeah, organic and really

special and seasonal stuff.

So let's make, like,

a simple soup

for the beginning

of the tasting menu.

Chop them, and then begin

onions and leeks,

butter and olive oil.

It's a Turkish cheese.

Taste it.

Wow.

It tastes like an aged feta.

Let's make a sauce

for the agnello (lamb).

Just with some milk

and some vegetable stock.

Melt it down.

[Vered] It took

the French people

hundreds of years,

it took the Americans

hundreds of years,

and they're still debating

about the question,

what is American cuisine?

What is immigrant cuisine?

What is American,

by nature?

You can say now about several

dishes that are Israeli.

Hummus became Israeli,

with all the complexity,

and all the political

issues around it,

but seasonally,

all the Israeli people eat it.

They talk about it.

"What is the best hummus?"

is something that is

a national question in a way.

So it is Israeli.

It doesn't matter now if

it was born in Lebanon,

in Jerusalem, or in the hummus

places in Tel Aviv.

So you can say about certain

dishes that are Israeli,

to define what is

Israeli cuisine,

or to wonder whether

there will be something

that is Israeli cuisine,

it's still gonna

take time to figure out.

[in Hebrew]

You don't create a kitchen

from day to day,

but from generation

to generation.

Now, creating a kitchen,

it's not my kitchen,

nor is it my mother's.

It's a kitchen

created by the earth.

Whatever the earth produced,

people cooked.

Now, call it an Arab kitchen,

a Galilean kitchen,

a Palestinian kitchen,

call it whatever you want.

[Offaim] I hope that

in ten or 15 years,

and it is certainly

already happening right now,

the ingredients will

be of even higher quality.

People will learn to

appreciate vegetables,

and eggs and milk and meat

that was raised on this land,

and they will develop

a flavor for Eretz Israel,

a flavor for Israel.

They will be accounting

for the taste

that they were born with.

You know, when we

are born and when we die,

we have a little bit

of dirt in our mouth,

which is the dirt

of where we came from,

and if we could

translate that taste

to what we're making

in the kitchen,

that could be

quite spectacular.

[Solomonov]

Cooking is my life.

Israeli food is

my life, just about,

and these are things

that I've never seen before,

and I'm just, I'm in awe of

the complexity of the people,

and of the cuisines.

I keep thinking about how this

relates to me, particularly,

how I'm gonna

utilize the things

that I've learned here

with my restaurant,

but it's really

not about that.

It's about my connection

to this place,

and how it's

been strengthened.

In 50 years,

what are people

going to be calling

Israeli cuisine then?

It's always moving forward,

always the future,

what's gonna happen next.

To be able to do that,

and couple it with thousands

of years of tradition,

is what is so exciting.

[extended yell]

Oh, like everyone in Israel,

from all over the globe.

One side came from

Romania and Poland,

the other side

from Afghanistan.

-Yemen.

-Turkey and Kyrgyzstan.

Ethiopia.

Yemenite,

European-Lithuanian-Russian.

-Uzbekistani.

-Latvia.

Poland and Romanian.

Russia,

Poland, Belarus.

Russia and Poland.

-Yemen,

-Germany.

Some Tunisian, Sephardic.

Pure-bred Bulgarian.

Austro-Hungary.

-Nazareth.

-Iran.

-Iraq.

-Poland.

-Romania.

-Russia and Turkey.

-Tiberias.

Poland and 15

generation in Israel.

[narrator] Funding for

In Search of Israeli Cuisine

is provided by...