Weekend Cooking: In Search of Israeli Cuisine (Film)

I had other plans for today's post, but after I stumbled across this documentary about Israeli food, I decided I didn't want to wait to share it with you. (Available on Netflix and Amazon)

In Search of Israeli Cusine, written and directed by Roger Sherman, follows award-winning chef Michael Solomonov (of Philadelphia's Zahav restaurant) on a journey through Israel to discover the defining flavors and dishes in that country's kitchens.

Let's start with the basic question of the film: What exactly is Israeli food? The word I remember most from the movie is complex. To say the country's food is global is a bit of an understatement. The cuisine has been influenced by thousands of years of indigenous peoples and cultures, by twentieth-century immigration, and by modern-day newcomers. The resulting dishes aren't what one would consider to be fusion, but something wholly different.

For such a small geographic area, Israel is a land of great diversity, from desert, to coastline, to lush hillsides and cold mountains, and each region has its own ingredients and traditions. In addition, you cannot talk about any aspect of Israel without taking politics and religion.

As other reviewers have noted, In Search of Israeli Cuisine doesn't give us a definite answer, but through Solomonov's adventures and interviews, we discover the incredible variety of foods to be found throughout Israel. We visit cheese caves, wineries, tomato farms, fruit orchards, olive presses, and fishing villages. We learn the differences between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and how cultural and religious traditions affect the food choices in those cities.

I particularly liked meeting the people, including growers / producers, chefs, food writers, and merchants. I was surprised to learn that religious dietary laws are not particularly strict and that politics and cultural issues can have a strong affect on the fate of restaurants. I hadn't realized that Israel was on the cutting edge of a new kind of global cuisine.

In some ways, Israel is not all that different from other immigrant countries: People bring with them the traditional foods of their homelands. Yet in America, cooking the dishes from home can be comforting, whereas in Israel in the mid-twentieth century, foods from Europe were a reminder of hardships, war, and persecution. Still, it's difficult to shed the culinary expectations set in one's childhood. Thus Israelis have a unique perspective on their country's cuisine or lack thereof.

Michael Solomonov has a relaxed, natural screen presence, which makes the film easy to watch. He doesn't have the slick, broad vocabulary of a Food Network star, and--frankly--I find that refreshing. We aren't subjected to a drawn-out assessment of each dish; instead Solmonov often gives us just a simple, "That's delicious."

The filming of In Search of Israeli Cuisine was nicely done, showing us the scenery, the food, and the people with equal attention.

Even though the search may have left more questions than answers, I can recommend In Search of Israeli Cuisine to anyone interested in how a country or region comes to be identified with a particular palette of flavors. Politics, religion, immigration, environment, and culture all play a part in defining the dishes coming out of Israeli kitchens. Here's the trailer:

_______

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

NOTE: Mr. Linky sometimes is mean and will give you an error message. He's usually wrong and your link went through just fine the first time. Grrrr.
_______