YNet: Israel Fears Sushi Shortage

YNet's Headline: Israel Fears Sushi Shortage After Quake.

And it's not from The Onion, but from the online site of Israel's largest-circulation newspaper, Yediot Aharanot. And it's not April 1, either.

Sure, the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown are tragic events, but can we still get our seaweed and wasabi?

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Falafel Wars

More food fights, this time involving falafel. (Sorry: link was wrong but now fixed.) At least, unlike the various hummus and other battles documented in that first link, they aren't trying to make the world's biggest falafel. Oh, the beans, the beans! But I'm still always bothered over the fight about whether hummus, or baba ghanouj, or falafel, or whatever, is Israeli or Palestinian. The similarities of the dietary laws between Judaism and Islam has often meant that in the modern US, if no halal grocery was available, observant Muslims would buy from kosher shops. Conversely, many Jews in Arab countries welcomed the fact that Muslim dietary taboos tracked so closely with their own, so even food without a rabbinical stamp might be quite kosher if it was halal.

Israelis should remember that the pioneers of the state got to know hummus and falafel becsuse that was the food available when they started their work. Israelis should also remember that their own pioneers had only arrived in the land a short time previous.

It's a harder task for Palestinians. They see every Israeli claim to hummus or falafel as a piece of cultural genocide. To us., it sounds absurd until we think about it. If we are what we eat, is it any surprise that our most intractable dispute today has a culinary competition?

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A Timely Encounter with Kushary

A personal anecdote, if I may, with a bit of fortuitous synchronicity: last night my daughter's school had an "international cuisine night." Parents were urged to share national dishes from their countries of origin, wear native dress, etc., and there was music and dancing from various parts of the world. As we live in a rather multi-ethnic neighborhood in northern Virginia, we expected there to be a good variety, and there was. Though my daughter herself comes from China, none 0f us are good at Chinese cooking, so we toyed with something Middle Eastern, and while I can whip up some good Middle Eastern dishes, it isn't really our cuisine, so we settled on being one of the few families attending to come up with something American, and made my wife's chili. (My own chili is better, in my opinion, but since it causes bleeding gums and requires extensive liquid refreshment afterward, if not resuscitation, we went with the mild stuff.)

It was crowded and chaotic and though the foods were supposed to be labeled, most weren't. I was pleased that among the many flags on the wall, one was Egypt's, since obviously many of us are cheering on Egypt in the first week without Mubarak. When we got to the serving table there was a lot of Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African food, though surprisingly little East Asian since there are many Vietnamese and Korean families in the area, though perhaps not in the school.

Anyway, I filled my plate with lamb couscous and Latin rice, curried lentils and some kind of kifta, and then came to an unlabeled plate.

Hmm. Noodles, macaroni, sauce, lentils, maybe a little rice, and chickpeas on top. Sounds like ... OMG, Kushary!

Now, Kushary is Egyptian street food. Like ful mudammas and ta‘amiyya, (the former is fava beans; the latter is a version of falafel made with fava beans instead of chickpeas), it is a distinctively native Egyptian dish. It can be found elsewhere, but most commonly where there's a big Egyptian expatriate population, such as the Gulf. It is sold in street carts or small, specialized kushary restaurants.

Of course, I took some. To be honest, kushary was never my favorite Egyptian specialty, but it is so typically Egyptian that I couldn't not eat it as we approach the first week since the fall of Mubarak. A nice little bit of synchronicity.

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World-Class Falafel Bagger

For something a bit lighter, from The Arabist, who got it via Anonymous Arabist, a falafel bagger who would hold the Guinness record, no doubt, if they had a category for falafel bagging, in a restaurant in Jenin:

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Veggies or Fries?

We all secretly prefer fries but say we like vegetables and even claim we eat them. But apparently we lie and don't eat our vegetables. We should. French fries are probably the worst vegetable to eat. The potato isn't bad itself but anything deep fried (especially twinkies) lose all nutritional value inside a casing of grease, fat, and salt.

I personally would love to eat french fries several times a week. Last week I had four - four individual french fries because the local sandwich shop at work has returned to the original way they make them (and they are extra delicious). Someone got an order and offered them (actually the person who went and picked up the food offered me some of another co-workers fries). But I digress. I only ate four french fries. I think I stole a couple off my husband's plate a month or so ago. I do not each french fries regularly. Just say 'one gram of fat per fry' and if you ate a whole order that would probably be around 50+ fries and most people shouldn't eat 50 grams of fat in a whole day, never mind in a side dish.

I have been accused (by my husband) of sticking vegetables into everything. I see nothing wrong with it. He claims he eats too much 'green stuff'. I put spinach on pizza and think nothing of it. He tells me it doesn't belong on pizza and pizza always must be topped with 'dead animal'. But I make him eat a salad first.

Sometimes I restrain myself and skip the extra snuck-in vegetables but not always. But where did all this vegetable eating get me? Fighting the battle of the bulge and cancer twice. I do admit there was a time in my life where I smoked and lived on Diet Coke (or Tab) which I now consider a 'chemical food' but I have always been happy with a salad for lunch. I grew up in a house where dinner always included a giant salad (eaten after the main course - I never thought that was weird until I went to college).

Vegetables are full of vitamins, fiber, and all sorts of other good stuff. Skip the fries and have a salad.

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The kitchen vs the institution

We think of a kitchen as a nice place where you can get snacks and make and enjoy healthy meals. We think of an institution, such as a hospital, as a place to get coffee that resembles brown water, powdered eggs with out seasoning, and rubber chicken, all served at room temperature. Well what if these were merged into a hospital which served tasty food, prepared nutritionally?

How is that for a concept? Availability of healthy food in your basic institutional cafeteria? Apparently there is a doctor in Oakland CA who is promoting this to the extent there is an organic only farmers market outside the main entrance to the hospital. The kitchen is beginning to be seen as just as important as the doctor's office in living well. Well that's pretty darn logical.

We see the return of healthy food everywhere, and now the debate is on the 'Frankenfish'. I find this to be just disgusting and don't think I'll be eating it anytime soon. I heard on the radio that this project has been underway since 1990 and that all the new Frankenfish contain some of the original 20 year old fish. And why is the image of a line of out of control robots keep popping into my head???

Well today is farmer's market day and CSA delivery day - by 5 pm there will be an overstock of vegetables in our house.

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Make the world healthier

People are fat and getting fatter in the US, also known as 'Fast Food Land'. People are trying to change their lives and their lifestyles to be healthier and lose weight. But then they go back to their easier old habits as they drive past rows of fast food restaurants and turn into the drive through for the greasy bags passed into their windows. Fast food has turned a calorie free drink - coffee and tea - into a latte, mochas and more that have more than 400 calories each - plus whipped cream. Those coffees used to be special for after a nice meal on a rare occasion, not for every morning.

We can all try individually to do our bests but we need to get rid of the chains of fast food who offer cheap easy food to the masses with little or no nutritional value. What happened to fruits and vegetables? Why can't there be a salad and a bowl of fruit on the value meals? Also, how did they turn a relatively healthy item, grilled chicken, into 10 grams of fat per sandwich?

But I digress. The problem is not with the food but with the way the economy and other factors impact our life styles. The government subsidizes corn and soybeans used for animal feed and oil for fryers and high fructose corn syrup. It also includes the cities without grocery stores forcing reliance on fast food. Why can a burger chain afford the rent but a grocery store can't?

We need to promote access to healthy food and reduce access to bad food. We need to make choices that are not influenced by non stop television advertising for bad foods choices - soda, doughnuts, and fast food. (What if the lettuce growers of America sponsored the Superbowl? It would be very green.) Why is it so hard to buy healthy food at sport stadiums and in airports? Skip that sausage and hot dog and get a salad with grilled chicken. Make the right choice.

There is nothing wrong with fast food restaurants but what if they de-emphasized the greasy food and emphasized the healthier foods? What if the government subsidized lettuce growers so it was cheaper for them to promote salads?

If you stop at the doughnut shop, skip the grease and fancy coffee and get a normal coffee and then something with some protein. And skip the drive through, park your car and walk from your car. Your body (and your waistline) will like you better.

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FOOD: Tasty, well-constructed and humorous ... with a dash of spice

(LP NOTE: As a sometime teacher of writing, I find this to be one of the best examples of the short essay that I have read in a long time:)

Your Carbon Foodprint

by Jennie Yabroff, NEWSWEEK, June 19

The server at Otarian, the new vegetarian fast-food chain that bills itself as “the planet’s low-carbon restaurant,” was trying to persuade a customer to try the “Choc O Treat.” “It’s sooo good, it’s chocolatey, and it comes in this pretty lavender paper!” he enthused. The Choc O Treat is not “sooo good”—it’s sooo dense, without being terribly chocolatey. But the point of Otarian isn’t really the food. It’s the wrapping.

Otarian cloaks itself in the smug assumption that you can save the planet by eating lunch. Words like “mission” and “menufesto” adorn the packaging, of which there is plenty. Your order comes on a tray lined with paper advertising low-carbon combo meals. Each item—the Portobello Mushroom Burger, the Tex Mex Burger, the Vego Burger, etc.—is wrapped in more paper and secured with a cardboard sleeve, which is held together by a sticker assuring you it is “100 percent compostable.” On the restaurant walls TVs proselytize, and the Web site waxes about (but provides few details on) the chain’s sustainable building design, water conservation, and energy efficiency—all that wrapping, for example, is made of recycled materials. No word on how they power those TVs.

The most delicious thing about Otarian, which has two New York locations and will soon open two more in London, is the irony behind its inception. The company’s founder, Radhika Oswal, is the wife of an Australian fertilizer magnate, who owns one of the world’s largest liquid ammonia plants. The Oswals are building a $70 million mansion that will include a 17-car garage. When pressed about these seemingly contradictory lifestyle choices, Oswal has claimed that the house will use 100 percent green energy. She also banned the construction workers building the house from eating meat. One might argue that the most carbon-neutral act she could have done would be to not build the house at all, but where’s the fun of that?

(Continued here.)

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