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Israeli salad (Template:Lang-he-n, salat yerakot yisraeli, "Israeli vegetable salad") is a chopped salad of finely diced tomato and cucumber. "Distinguished by the tiny diced tomatoes and cucumbers," it is described as the "most well-known national dish of Israel."

In Israel, it is also commonly referred to as salat yerakot (Template:Lang-he-n, "vegetable salad"), salat katzutz (Template:Lang-he-n, "chopped salad") or salat aravi (Template:Lang-he-n, "Arab salad").

Description

Israeli salad is usually dressed with fresh lemon juice and olive oil. Parsley and spring onions are sometimes added, but not lettuce. Generally, the cucumbers are not peeled. The key is using very fresh vegetables and chopping them as finely as possible. The ability to chop the tomatoes and cucumbers into the "finest, most perfect dice" is considered a mark of status among many kibbutz cooks.

Variations include salads made with the addition of diced red or green bell peppers, grated carrot, finely shredded cabbage, sliced radish, fennel, spring onions and chives, and other herbs such as mint, za'atar or sumac.

Israeli salad is served as an independent side dish, as an accompaniment to main dishes, or stuffed in a pita with falafel or shawarma. It was part of the traditional Israeli breakfast at home before Western-style breakfast cereals became popular, and remains a standard feature at buffet breakfasts at Israeli hotels.

History

The dish cannot be an ancient one since the tomato was introduced to cultivation in the Middle East by John Barker, British consul in Aleppo c. 1799 –c. 1825. Nineteenth century descriptions of tomato consumption are uniformly as a part of a cooked dish. In 1881 the tomato is described as only eaten in the region, "within the last forty years."

Although popularized by the kibbutzim, versions of this mixed salad were brought to Israel from various places. For example, Jews from India prepare it with the addition of finely chopped ginger and green chili peppers, North African Jews may add preserved lemon peel and cayenne pepper, and Bukharan Jews chop the vegetables extremely finely and use vinegar, without oil, in the dressing.

Foods popular in Israel such as hummus, falafel and Israeli salad are common to much of the Mediterranean and Arabic world." Other similar chopped salads found in the Middle East, include the Persian salad shirazi سالاد شيرازي (which includes mint, diced onions, and peeled cucumbers), and the Turkish choban salad; among others found throughout the eastern Mediterranean area in Turkey, Lebanon, and even Egypt.

Joseph Massad, a professor of Arab Politics at Columbia University, cites the renaming of, "Palestinian rural salad (now known in New York delis as Israeli salad)," as one example of the appropriation of Palestinian and pan-Syrian foods by Israel.

Interviewed on the BBC program Cooking in the Danger Zone, food editor Gil Hovav stated that: "this salad that we call an Israeli Salad, actually it's an Arab salad, Palestinian salad...."

In popular culture

Israeli salad often makes a cameo appearance in literature about Israel.

References

1. The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, Claudia Roden, Knopf, 1996, p. 248
2. Israel, Jill DuBois and Mair Rosh, Marshall Cavendish Pub., 2003 . p. 130
3. "Jerusalem Diaries II: What's Really Happening in Israel, Judy Lash Balint. Published by Xulon Press, 2007. p. 259
4. ^ Los Angeles Times: "A Salad for This Season" May 28, 1992
5. The Israeli Food Guide
6. ^ Fresh from the Desert
7. A Salad Palette from Smitten Kitchen
8. Mouth Wide Open: A Cook and His Appetite, John Thorne, Tor/Forge, 2007, p. 190
9. Gur, Jana, The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey, Schocken (2008) ISBN 0805212248 pp. 20 - 25
10. British Consuls in Aleppo
11. Syria under the last five Turkish Sultans, Appletons' journal Published by D. Appleton and Co., 1876, p. 519
12. The Friend, 1881, p. 223
13. Roden, Claudia, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, New York, Knopf (1997) ISBN 0394532589, pg. 248
14. My Jewish Learning: Jewish Food 101
15. Authentic Iranian recipe for Salad-e Shirazi
16. Houston Chronicle: Dice up a staple salad dish
17. Joseph Massad, "The Persistence of the Palestinian Question," in Empire & Terror: Nationalism/postnationalism in the New Millennium, Begoña Aretxaga, University of Nevada, Reno Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada Press, 2005 p. 63
18. BBC Cooking in the Danger Zone: Israel and Palestinian Territories, Page 6
19. The Crime Writer, Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, by Viking, 2007, p. 219
20. Israeli Backpackers and Their Society: A View from Afar, By Chaim Noy, Erik Cohen SUNY Press, 2005 p. 63
21. West Side Stories, Michael D Lieberman, 2005, p. 361
22. Al-Naqba (the Catastrophe): A Novel about the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Barbara A. Goldscheider, Frog Books, 2005, p. 39

• Salads
• Israeli cuisine
• Mediterranean cuisine