Curated playlist
Israeli cuisine
- Cottage cheeseCottage cheese got its name in the United States, where it was made in farm cottages from the milk left over after butter making. The name sounds humble, and the food is plain on purpose. It is a fresh cheese with a mild flavor and a…
- SemolinaSemolina is a coarse flour, traditionally milled from durum wheat, and one international food standard defines it with a sieve. The Codex Alimentarius says a durum wheat semolina must have grains large enough that no more than 79 percent…
- FalafelFalafel once had a place on the breakfast menu at McDonald's in Egypt, where the chain for a time sold a sandwich called the McFalafel. A global burger company adapting its menu around a fried bean fritter says a great deal about how…
- TahiniTahini is a paste of ground sesame seeds, and sesame shows up in one of the oldest records of food culture. A cuneiform document written 4,000 years ago describes a custom of serving the gods sesame wine. The paste itself is a later story,…
- Baba ghanoushBaba ghanoush is a dish with at least three common English spellings and two quite different pronunciations. Writers also render it as baba ganoush or baba ghanouj. In the Arabic script it appears as بابا غنوج. Even English speakers cannot…
- ShakshoukaShakshouka is a dish of eggs cooked gently in a pan of tomato sauce, built on olive oil, peppers, onion and garlic. Cooks usually season it with cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper. It belongs to the Maghreb, the western stretch of North…
- KebabKebab is not one dish. In the Syrian city of Aleppo alone, cooks are said to make at least twenty-six versions of it. Some are cooked with cherries, some with aubergine, some with chili, parsley and pine nuts, and one style is made with…
- SchnitzelIn Austria, a breaded schnitzel served under a sauce is considered unacceptable. That tells you how seriously Vienna takes a thin slice of fried meat. Schnitzel is exactly that: meat sliced thin, usually pounded flat with a tenderizer, and…
- ShawarmaShawarma begins with a tall cone of stacked meat turning slowly beside a source of heat. As the outer layer cooks, a cook shaves it away in thin pieces, and the cone keeps turning. That simple routine plays out at street stalls across the…
- CheesecakeCheesecake already had its own book in the 5th century BCE, when a Greek physician named Aegimus wrote a treatise on the art of making it. That is the earliest mention of the dessert anyone has found. The dish he described had little in…
- BulgurBulgur is a cracked wheat food, and in parts of the Middle East people eat it by the sack. A 2007 study in the Journal of Food Engineering measured how much. In south-eastern Turkey, the average person ate about 25 kilograms of bulgur…
- CouscousCouscous is a North African dish of tiny steamed granules of rolled semolina, usually topped with a spoonful of stew. Each granule is only about 2 mm across. Yet this humble grain-like food raises surprisingly large questions. Where does…
- PilafPilaf, also written pilav, pilau or plov, is judged by one old test: does each grain stand apart from the next? Thirteenth-century texts set the bar plainly. The grains should be plump and slightly firm, like peppercorns, with no mush and…
- Pickled cucumberThe pickled cucumber goes by two names, and which one you use depends on where you live. In the United States and Canada, it is simply a pickle. In Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, it is a gherkin. Under either…
- Za'atarZa'atar, pronounced ZAH-tar, has a long record in the ground. In the tomb of Tutankhamun, dated to the 14th century BCE, researchers found plant remains identified as Thymbra spicata. That herb is one of several still sold under the name…