Foods in Israel (blog by Noah)

Israel has many interesting foods that are different from those at home.

Most of the foods are typical throughout Israel. Some are only found in certain places, like St. Peter's fish near Lake Kinneret, and both Haifa and Jerusalem bagels. (Jerusalem bagels are long and thin, with thicker crust; Haifa bagels are shorter and sweeter. Personally I like Haifa bagels better than Jerusalem bagels.)

These are some of the typical Israeli foods that I have tried:

1. Felafel – this is the most common Israeli food. It is served different ways: in pita bread, or rolled up in big pieces of laffa bread, which I like better. Felafel is made of fried balls of ground chickpeas, plus lots of salad, hummus, tehina, and french fries, right in the sandwich!
2. Shawarma – this is like felafel, but made with grilled lamb instead of chickpeas.
3. Hummus – this is a thick dip made of ground chick peas.
4. Tehina – this is a thinner dip or sauce made of ground sesame seeds (I like tehina better than hummus)
5. Israeli Salad – this is made up of diced tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet onions
6. Pickled salads – Israelis eat a lot of pickled vegetables. We've had pickled carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, beets, onions, tomatoes, and many others.
7. Shnitzel – Most felafel and shawarma places also sell shnitzel, which are breaded chicken cutlets eaten like a steak or in a pita.
8. Ice cream – Israeli ice cream is a lot like Italian gelato, with lots of really cool flavors. And the clerks are really nice about giving tastes to try.
9. Fruit juices and shakes – There are lots of stands and stores that sell fresh-squeezed fruit juices and blended fruit shakes. We've had pomegranate juice, melon juice, melon-berry-mint smoothie, kiwi-melon smoothie, etc. It's fun to try new flavors.
10. Burgers – We've eaten these several different ways: with American-style buns, without any buns, and in a pita like a felafel (my favorite). We even had burgers on Passover on potato buns (but these weren't so good).
11. Rugelach and baked goods – These have all been really yummy. I like the cookies with halvah inside best. In Jerusalem, at the shuk, we got freshly baked chocolate rugelach still hot from the oven. So good!