Falafel is one of the greatest junk food items in the world and quintessentially Jewish- real Jew, that is, not dumbed-down Eastern European blandness. I discovered it in 1970 when I was a teenager on a trip to Israel not long after the 1967 war. Hashish was cheap, American teenage girls were numerous and loose, and it was easy to work up an appetite, even for something that strange and unfamiliar to me, a rather conservative and unadventurous eater. It was, to use the cliche, love at first bite. Crunchy, salty, greasy, spicy, it hits everything that I love in food. The portability and customizability took it from wonderful to perfection. When I was traveling and living in Europe during the 1990s and 2000s, I sought out the best examples- and the easy winner was the Maoz shop in Amsterdam near Leidseplein (the other Maoz in town wasn’t nearly as good). It says a lot that it was always my first stop after landing at Schipol, even before the coffee shops or checking into my hotel.
In my experience, food does more to bring people together than anything else I can think of. But as with anything great, the dark side is the assholes who insist on politicizing it, to scream about cultural appropriation, and to make wild and sweeping claims to support whatever narrative they’re invested in. Falafel is particularly prone to this because of the drama-queen tendencies of certain sects of Middle Easterners. Here’s some examples:
From a prominent Israeli leftist:
To some extent, then, Israeli cuisine reflects the violence of the Israeli state and the appropriation of Arab and Palestinian foods. Regional foods are not so much integrated as taken over. Seemingly traditional Arab foods like falafel and hummus are written into the Israeli culinary narrative at the expense of erasing their status as Arab or Palestinian.
There is nothing trivial about being deprived of the ability to claim a food as your own. Food has important cultural meanings, and the ways in which we identify different foods both shape and reflect our understandings of each other. To appropriate another people’s food is to undermine their culture and is an act of violence. For Israel to claim regional dishes as its own serves a political process, and raises the question of whether or not any cuisine can legitimately be called Israeli.
From Al Jazeera:
… in Falafel Road, a project that stemmed from an art residency with the London-based Live Arts Development Agency, (Palestinian artist and filmmaker Larissa) Sansour, in collaboration with Israeli artist Oreet Ashery, visits London eateries, recording what they call “the falafel experience”.Although the duo predominately visited Arab-run falafel restaurants, they also encountered Israeli-run eateries. In a visit to a restaurant operated by Iraqi Jews, Sansour and Ashery talk about about their discomfort upon hearing militant Israeli music being played in the restaurant.
“This genre of music came from the era of Israeli military bands, and whilst they might sound ‘innocent’ to everyday Israeli listeners, they are steeped in military and Zionist overtones, and are part of the brain-washing machine that the Israeli national project is. If we had any doubts earlier as to how politicised falafel was, this experience put an end to them,” writes Ashery on the Falafel Road blog.
So even the Muzak is part of the Zionist conspiracy.
From Gulf News:
My niece, Irene, called me a few days ago indignant that some of her American friends, including some Jews, keep describing typical Arab foods such as falafel, hummus and shawarma, among others, as Israeli. She wanted to know how she can convince them this is not the case. I am quite familiar with this problem since many Americans have been aware of this undeclared war at many unsuspecting restaurants specialising in Mediterranean cuisine, or coverage in the media.
…To cite but one of many distortions and claims about the authenticity of Israeli cuisine, Joan Nathan, author of The Foods of Israel and whose writings and recipes appear on MyJewishLearning.com, maintains that falafel is “the ultimate Israeli food”.
The author then pivots to tie this in with further Zionist conspiracies:
In an Op-Ed column published in The Washington Post, Nina Shea complains about the alleged “cleansing campaign” now underway against non-Muslim minorities in Iraq. Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Centre for Religious Freedom and a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, saw this action as similar to what happened “sixty years ago (to) Iraq’s flourishing Jewish population, a third of Baghdad, (that) fled in the wake of coordinated bombing and violence against them”. Of the 125,000 only 6,000 remained in Iraq and the remainder settled in Israel.
You would think that Shea would have checked her facts before making these outrageous and disputed allegations.
Naeim Giladi, an Iraqi Jew who fled to Israel and later settled in the US, maintains in an article that appeared in The Link (April – May 1998) and his book, Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews that “the terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews”. He also pointed out that Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), wrote in his book, Ropes of Sand, published in 1980, that “in attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorise the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the US Information Service library and in synagogues (and) soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel.”
Uhhh, OK.
A contrarian view that falafel is a modern invention:
Pita pockets were made possible by European baking technology likely only about 100 years old, (Prof. Shaul Stampfer) notes. The falafel balls themselves are also not as ancient as some sources imply: While many state that the origin of falafel is in Egypt, where it was made with fava beans by the Coptic community as early as the 4th century, falafel and its fava equivalent ta’amiyeh start appearing in Egyptian literature only after the British occupation in 1882, he found. Oil would have been too expensive before the modern era for deep frying, Stampfer told Haaretz in a recent interview. Falafel became popular in Beirut and Mandate Palestine in the mid-1930s, and was common in Israel by 1949, he says.
Even tomatoes are a new-world food, and not indigenous to the Middle East, reaching the region only at the end of the 19th century, he adds.
…Some argue that falafel was an Arab dish that was appropriated by Israeli Jews – an act of cultural appropriation said to mirror other forms of Israeli violence against Palestinians. This argument rests on the assumption that falafel has a long history in the Arab world, and that Jewish immigrants to the Middle East have attempted to disregard or erase its Arab or Palestinian roots by calling it an Israeli food. Until now, a common counter argument was that many Israeli Jews are originally from Arab nations, and their ancestors therefore made falafel, too.
But Stampfer says that these arguments rest on claims that are simply incorrect. Falafel is too recent a development to have been appropriated by anyone, he writes. Yet many Israelis have accepted the Palestinian claim “that the Jews living in Israel illegitimately adopted a food of another population.”
“The eating of falafel in a sandwich was very possibly an innovation of Jews living in Jaffa or Jerusalem,” he speculates in his essay.
OK, so bottom line is, who the fuck knows, and really, who cares? At least if, like me, you love the food first, are delighted by the interchange and mingling of cultures, and think that our strength as humans is in communication and adaption- and this is, I think, particularly true of Jews. So, when you think “Israeli food,” you think “falafel” in the same reflexive way you think “Italian” when you hear “pasta,” Marco Polo notwithstanding.
So every time I hear about “appropriation,” I figuratively punch the moron in the pants. Well, usually. Sometimes literally.
Now, the best part, making these delights. There’s about a zillion variations, and like pizza, vociferous defenders and detractors of each choice. What kind of beans, fava or garbanzo? What greens, parsley or cilantro? What frying oil, olive or peanut? I have my own opinions, of course, and everyone else is wrong.
Old Man With Candy’s Most Excellent Jew Falafel
1 cup dried garbanzos
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (optional- I live with a cilantro hater, so leave it out when I’m cooking for her)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 ripe tomato, diced
1 cup shredded romaine hearts
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
tahini sauce
Soak the garbanzos for at least 24 hours in 3 cups of tap water with 1 tsp baking soda. Drain thoroughly. Grind the cumin and coriander seeds (I keep a spare Braun coffee grinder for spice use- you should too, it’s easier than a mortar and pestle), then add the soaked and drained beans, the cumin, coriander, garlic, onion, cilantro, parsley, salt, pepper, and the remaining 1/2 tsp baking soda to a food processor with the metal blade. Pulse on and off, scraping down the bowl, until the mixture is the consistency of very coarse sand.
If you’re tempted to use canned garbanzos, don’t. You can also use dried fava beans or a mix of fava and garbanzo- this is more of the Egyptian style, and let’s face it, Egypt is a shithole with the military prowess and bravery of France.
Heat oil in a deep fryer to 360°F. I prefer a blend of corn oil and peanut oil, but wouldn’t argue with some refined olive oil. Don’t use canola unless you want everything to smell like a lesbian locker room. Form the falafel patties- some do it by hand, I go the pro route and use a falafel scoop, a nifty spring-loaded device pictured on the left, which gives me rapid and consistent molding. I dip it in cold water between patties for good release. Mine was a gift from a Palestinian lady whose son worked for me; she was apparently grateful that I hadn’t murdered him or appropriated his house and land. Her falafel is stunningly good, but I haven’t gotten her to cough up her secrets yet- the Mossad should eventually come through for me. Nonetheless, my version is still better than 99% of the restaurant ones I’ve had.
Deep fry the patties for 5 minutes or so until medium brown and crispy. Drain. Serve stuffed into pita with the tomato, romaine, and cucumber, drizzled with tahini sauce. For the last, blend tahini with pureed garlic, salt, lemon juice, cayenne (I substitute sriracha just for a little more appropriation), and enough water to form a smooth sauce.
If you really want to twist the knife, this goes great with a nice bottle of Chateau Musar Blanc, a Lebanese wine made from a blend of merwah and obaideh grapes. Or, frankly, a fine Belgian ale. Piss off those Muslims good and hard.
