Moving to Israel, making aliyah, might change a person. It might even influence what a person cooks and eats. Several former Detroiters tell of their transformations and share recipes.<\/p>\n
Tamara \u201cTami\u201d Golan experienced a food shift. As a young teacher, Golan came to Migdal HaEmek, in the Detroit Partnership area, from Michigan for a yearlong educational trip, one of the Israel experience programs of MASA. The organizers found her an apartment right near the shuk, the city\u2019s open-air market.<\/p>\n
She recalls, \u201cI would go on Tuesdays and just buy all the fresh fruits and vegetables and grains. I felt like a kid in a candy store, but the candy was fruit and vegetables.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Golan says, \u201cEverything was so fresh and so cheap,\u201d she pronounces the word \u201cfresh\u201d with reverence. That year, she realized she much preferred to cook with fruits and vegetables. She did not even like touching raw meat.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I became vegetarian. I would just buy all these wonderful things from the shuk and that\u2019s what I would use for my meal prep, for my cooking, for my everything for the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce in a while, if I really wanted a hamburger, I would go out with my friends to BBB [an Israeli burger chain].<\/p>\n
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Rami and Tamara Golan<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not like it was for any ideological reason or for any specific health reason. It was just having that access to this incredible fresh food that changed how I ate for a few years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later, she met her husband, Omri, a native Israeli and a committed carnivore. According to Tami, they joke: \u201cIf he does not eat meat in a day, he is hungry.\u201d They always keep servings of chicken or beef in the freezer, so he can have at least one serving of meat a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the U.S., things like chips and processed food are the cheap food. And everyone has them in their closets,\u201d she says. In Israel, the Golans have a fruit basket on their kitchen island, and they make sure it stays full. \u201cIf I want a snack, I go and grab a clementine; I go and grab an apple.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Golan now works as external relations and resource development for the Daniel Centers, a group of Reform synagogues in and around Tel Aviv. She coordinates visits from Reform synagogues across the USA for Kabbalat Shabbat, Friday night dinners and lessons with the rabbi; she arranges for the rabbi to teach overseas as scholar-in-residence; and she does fundraising.<\/p>\n
Golan gives a shout-out to her mother, Gail Greenberg, who worked for the Jewish Federation for 17 years, and now serves as the education director of lifelong learning and Yachad at Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She recalls that at a caf\u00e9, on her second date with Omri, he ordered shakshuka, a tomato-based egg dish. They decided shakshuka \u201cis something you should never order in a restaurant.\u201d Make it at home, she says.<\/p>\n
To illustrate eating like an Israeli, Tami did not send a recipe for shakshuka. Instead, she sent a recipe for fire-roasted eggplant, part of an Israeli-style breakfast with fresh schug (a spicy dip of ground hot green peppers in olive oil with herbs), guacamole, strawberries and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Ingredients are from her local fruit and vegetable store.<\/p>\n
FIRE-ROASTED EGGPLANT<\/p>\n
From Tami Golan<\/p>\n
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Rivky Schramm Krestt<\/p>\n
Note: Readers can easily make fire-roasted eggplant at home. Depending on the weather, we either make it on the barbeque outside or on our gas stove. You do need a real fire source, not just a heat source, so an electric\u00a0stove or induction stove won\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
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Ingredients<\/p>\n
1 large eggplant<\/p>\n
Garnishes: salt, pepper, tahini, schug and pomegranate molasses<\/p>\n
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Directions:<\/p>\n
If making this on a gas stove inside, we usually cover the stove in aluminum foil, so when the juices from the eggplant drip, it makes for easy clean up.<\/p>\n
Turn the gas stove onto the highest heat and lay the eggplant directly onto the flame. No pan or anything.<\/p>\n
Allow the skin to burn and char, and then flip the eggplant, allowing every side time for the skin to char.\u00a0Don\u2019t be afraid to really burn it. The actual flesh inside the eggplant won\u2019t burn!<\/p>\n
Once the eggplant is completely well charred, lay it flat on a plate, and slice it directly down the middle. Flay it out to both sides.<\/p>\n
We top ours with salt, pepper, tahini, schug and pomegranate molasses.<\/p>\n
Sim Zacks At the Smoker<\/p>\n
Sim Zacks made aliyah from Michigan 22 years ago with his wife and four young children. He works in high-tech. \u201cIrony of ironies,\u201d he says, \u201cI am now working for General Motors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zacks made a different culinary transition. A few years ago, as he recounts, his wife told him he needed a hobby and told him, \u201cYou can\u2019t have a hobby that you don\u2019t do \u2026 skydiving is only a valid hobby if you jump out of an airplane, right? If you don\u2019t, then it\u2019s not a hobby. It\u2019s just something that you would have liked to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, he bought a smoker.\u00a0 He learned about the different cuts of meat available from butchers in Israel. He found a supplier and purchased one bag of nitrate salt, not readily available in Israel, but enough, because \u201cyou need just a little bit for each thing you do.\u201d He has made corned beef, pastrami and salami.<\/p>\n
Clicking around on YouTube, he found video instructions for making beef bacon. It was not a kosher thing; they just used the belly of a cow. He found the cut of meat he needed: asado. He looked up the recipe, and \u201cit was so super simple that I was, like, let\u2019s try this.\u201d<\/p>\n
BEEF BACON<\/p>\n
from Sim Zack<\/p>\n
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Frying up the Beef Bacon<\/p>\n
Ingredients<\/p>\n
Asado cut of beef (from the belly)<\/p>\n
1\u00bc tsp. brown sugar<\/p>\n
\u00be\u00a0 tsp. paprika<\/p>\n
2\u00bd tsp. kosher salt<\/p>\n
\u00bc tsp. nitrogen salt<\/p>\n
Directions<\/p>\n
Mix the spices together and rub it on top of the meat, then wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate.\u00a0 Once a day for five days, turn the meat over in the fridge and rub it.<\/p>\n
In a smoker, cook it until a meat thermometer reaches 145 degrees Fahrenheit, remove from smoker and let it rest for three minutes or more. Then put it in the fridge for a while, because it does not cut well hot. When cool, slice it really thin. Zacks uses an electric slicer. Then fry it in its own fat until it gets crispy.\u00a0 It is basically very salty smoked meat. You can\u2019t eat a lot of it straight, but it\u2019s great if you crumble it and cut it into tiny pieces to add to roasted potatoes and salad.<\/p>\n
Locally Grown Fruits & Veggies<\/p>\n
Shaina Shevin Warshay made aliyah with her husband and four children in July 2019. She works as a medical secretary. She notes differences between food shopping in Michigan and Israel: In Israel, stores carry locally grown fruits and vegetables, almost always during the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrawberry season [winter!] is a big deal in this house,\u201d she says. \u201cChicken soup has different vegetables, depending on the time of year. Basic carrot, parsnip and celery in the U.S. gave way to those plus the seasonal turnip and parsley root, kohlrabi, light green squash instead of the more expensive zucchini and onion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sometimes use hawaj (a spice mix with turmeric, cumin, cardamom and black pepper), sometimes also saffron, coriander and other spices in the soup for a slightly different flavor. \u201cI also use more Mediterranean spices \u2014 cumin, turmeric,hawaj \u2014 in my cooking in general,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Warshay says she was introduced to Sephardi cuisine from visiting neighbors in Israel. Her favorite recipe is Hawaj Chicken \u2014 bone-in thighs and legs drizzled with honey, sprinkled with hawaj and roasted.<\/p>\n
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Her Cooking Transformed<\/p>\n
Rivky Schramm Krestt grew up in Southfield and moved to Israel from Silver Spring, Maryland, in 2012, settling in Efrat with her family. She lists the way her cooking has changed since moving to Israel:<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cThe big three spices that changed my kitchen are cumin, tamarind and preserved lemon. Tamarind has a unique sweet-sour depth that\u2019s hard to describe until you taste it. Preserved lemon adds a briny, bright punch that\u2019s hard to replicate with fresh lemon. Cumin I always knew, but I use it far more generously now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cRoasted vegetables are transformed \u2014 especially eggplant and chickpeas. I grew up knowing eggplant only from ratatouille, which I didn\u2019t even like! Now I roast it, grill it, make it into salad. Roasted chickpeas with cumin are a favorite \u2014 I buy a frozen 500-gram bag and they serve as a garnish, a snack and, at one point, kept my daughter fed during her vegan phase. And then there\u2019s tamarind beet salad, which I first had at someone\u2019s house and fell completely in love with.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne interesting detail: There\u2019s a new place in Efrat whose tagline is \u201cbringing back Ashkenazi soul food\u201d \u2014 they even serve Prohibition-style pickles. So, it goes both ways: I\u2019ve absorbed more Middle Eastern cooking and, at the same time, there\u2019s a local nostalgia movement reclaiming Ashkenazi flavors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krestt adds that \u201cthe style of cooking is also different.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople think nothing of doing a backyard BBQ for lunch [on the biblical festivals, observed for only one day in Israel]\u2014 far less formal than the elaborate preparations I grew up with. Even for Rosh Hashanah, which is still two days and involves a lot of food, I\u2019ve started doing a sandwich bar rather than a sit-down meal. Less pressure and people love picking exactly what they want.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure how much of this is an Israel thing versus just changing times \u2014 but I\u2019ll say that many of my neighbors do the same, so something is definitely in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krestt is a Jewish educator. She serves as an instructional designer and Judaic curriculum specialist at YU Global and teaches at Midreshet Lindenbaum.<\/p>\n
Fourteen years after making aliyah, her \u201cfamily has grown to include one ornery dog and one wonderful son-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Detroit Jewish News has been supported by readers like you since 1942. Support independent, local, Jewish journalism with a donation today.<\/p>\n