Challah is typically an egg-enriched bread, often braided in the Ashkenazi tradition, or round for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Sephardi hamin contains chicken or meat, rice, beans, garlic, sweet or regular potatoes, seasonings such as turmeric and cinnamon, and whole eggs in the shell known as haminados. It is baked plain, or with a topping of sesame or nigella seeds or za'atar. Wine made of fruits other than grapes such as fig, cherry, pomegranate, carob and date are also common in the country. [72], Pita bread is a double-layered flat or pocket bread traditional in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines. For guests and locals alike, food culture is one of the highlights of experiencing Israel. Herring is often served at the kiddush that follows synagogue services on Shabbat, especially in Ashkenazi communities. Tel Aviv is particularly well known for its café culture.[86]. [117] Fish dishes, symbolizing abundance, are served; for example, gefilte fish is traditional for Ashkenazim, while Moroccan Jews prepare the spicy fish dish, chraime. There is another variety filled with meat, fried onions, parsley, spices and pine nuts, which is sometimes mixed with mashed chickpeas and breakfast version with feta or tzfat cheese and za'atar. [74] It is also often served in restaurants as dessert, along with small cups of Turkish coffee. Sahlab is a drinkable pudding once made of the powdered bulb of the orchid plant but today usually made with cornstarch. The region itself is, of course, strongly influenced by the food in surrounding countries, such as north African countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, as well as nearby Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. [50] Albondigas are also prepared from ground meat.,[51] similar to albogindas is the more popular Kufta which is made of minced meat, herbs and spices and cooked with tomato sauce, date syrup, pomegranate syrup or tamarind syrup with vegetables or beans. Tahini cookies are an Israeli origin cookies made of tahini, flour, butter and sugar and usually topped with pine nuts. The cooking style of the community was Sephardi cuisine, which developed among the Jews of Spain before their expulsion in 1492, and in the areas to which they migrated thereafter, particularly the Balkans and Ottoman Empire. Because Israel is such a young country, modern Israeli food recipes are derived from generations of immigrants from six continents. Israeli food is all the rage these days in places like New York, where several restaurants and eating establishments catering to the variety of Israeli foods have opened. This means bread, pastries and certain fermented beverages, such as beer, cannot be consumed. Another rice dish is prepared with thin noodles that are first fried and then boiled with the rice. [17], Israeli eating customs also conform to the wider Mediterranean region, with lunch, rather than dinner, being the focal meal of a regular workday. [1] It incorporates many foods traditionally included in other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, so that spices like za'atar and foods such as falafel, hummus, msabbha, shakshouka and couscous are now widely popular in Israel.[2][3]. The holidays and festivals are all based on the Hebrew calendar. The holiday of Hanukkah is marked by the consumption of traditional Hanukkah foods fried in oil in commemoration of the miracle in which a small quantity of oil sufficient for one day lasted eight days. It is sometimes also mixed with grapefruit juice to create a cocktail known as 'Arak eshkoliyyot', literally 'Arak grapefruit'. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, is reputed to have asked the Osem company to devise this substitute, and it was thus nicknamed "Ben-Gurion rice". Baklava is a nut-filled phyllo pastry sweetened with syrup served at celebrations in Jewish communities who originated in the Middle East. They are made of a flaky dough in a variety of shapes, frequently topped with sesame seeds, and are filled with meat, chickpeas, cheese, spinach, potatoes or mushrooms. Rugelach is very popular in Israel, commonly found in most cafes and bakeries. [77][78] Sahlab is a similar dessert made from the powdered tubers of orchids and milk. [4][7], The State of Israel faced enormous military and economic challenges in its early years, and the period from 1948 to 1958 was a time of food rationing and austerity, known as tzena. [62], There is a strong tradition of home baking in Israel arising from the years when there were very few bakeries to meet demand. 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