Israeli Food Culture and Dining Out

Hello everyone, and welcome to the new episode of the podcast "Yalla: Learning Hebrew with Steph", a podcast for intermediate Hebrew learners. I'm Steph, and today we're going to talk about food culture in Israel. Not about recipes or specific Israeli dishes, but about food culture outside the home. We'll learn what Israeli food is, what a kashrut certificate is, about service in restaurants, and about the phenomenon of Wolt deliveries. So let's start with a question: what actually is Israeli food? A lot of Israelis came to the country from other countries, or their parents, or their grandparents, came from there. Every family brought its own food with it: the recipes, the spices and the familiar flavours from home. That's how a mix of all sorts of cuisines came about: Yemenite, Moroccan, Persian, Polish, Russian and more. And all of these met the local food, including Arab cuisine. Over time, some of the dishes changed a little, new flavours were added to them, and they became part of what we call today "Israeli food". So when someone asks "what is Israeli food?", there isn't really one answer. It's a combination of food from different places, and of the stories of the people who make it. Now, you can't talk about Israeli food without also talking about kosher food. And I want to start specifically with the word "kasher", because it's really interesting. The basic meaning of kasher is "suitable" or "fitting", and this word isn't connected only to food. And the word kosher in English? It came from Yiddish, which got it from Hebrew. When we talk about food, kashrut means the food rules according to the Jewish religion: what you're allowed to eat and how the food is prepared. For example, you don't mix meat and milk, and there are animals you're not allowed to eat. These rules are based on the Torah and on Jewish tradition. So how do you know if a restaurant is kosher? In Israel, you can look for a kashrut certificate. This certificate shows that there is someone checking that the restaurant keeps the rules of kashrut. This checking is called pikuach. And there's something else interesting here: in Israel there's a law from 1983 called the "Kashrut Fraud Prevention Law". According to the law, a restaurant needs a kashrut certificate in order to present itself as kosher. And not just anyone can give this certificate, only someone the law permits to. The Chief Rabbinate and the local rabbis have a central role in this whole business. The Chief Rabbinate is an official religious institution in Israel, and in English it's called the Chief Rabbinate. So even if restaurant owners are strict about the rules of kashrut, they can't simply write that their restaurant is kosher. They also need an appropriate certificate. And not everyone agrees that this is how it should work. There are people who say: it's important to have organised supervision, so that we can rely on the certificate. Others think restaurant owners should be given more options to choose who checks their kashrut. But wait, if a restaurant doesn't have a kashrut certificate, does that mean it doesn't keep the rules of kashrut at all? Not necessarily. It might keep some of the rules, and maybe even all of them. You just can't know that only from what's written on the menu. So if you keep kosher, it's worth checking whether the restaurant has a kashrut certificate that suits you. Okay, let's go back to what happens in restaurants in Israel. Let's say you've chosen an Israeli meat restaurant, you've sat down at the table, so what now? First of all, there are salads. Usually, before you order, you get small dishes, things like hummus, tahini, roasted aubergine, chopped tomato and cucumber and more. And everyone shares them together. Afterwards, you order. It's quite common to order food for the whole table, so that you eat together. The dishes arrive at the same time and the waiter or waitress puts them in the middle of the table. In England, I feel like it's more common for everyone to order for themselves, and in Israel that's less common. Okay, let's talk about service in restaurants in Israel. From my experience, the waiters are usually nice, and you can talk to them freely. For example, you can ask which dishes they recommend. Sometimes they'll even tell you which dish is less worth ordering. They have opinions, and they're happy to share them. Another difference between Israel and England is how customers react when there's a problem with the food. For example, what happens if the dish arrives cold, or if it simply doesn't taste good to you? In England, even when there's a problem, a lot of people prefer not to say anything. When the waiters ask "is everything okay?", we usually answer "yes, thank you very much" and carry on eating. Only afterwards, in the car on the way home, do we start to complain. **Lehitlonen** is "to complain" in English. That is, we have complaints, but we don't say them to the waiters, because we don't want to be impolite. In Israel, on the other hand, a lot of people feel comfortable saying there's a problem. For example: "excuse me, my dish is cold. Could you heat it up?" or "this dish doesn't taste very good to me. Could I swap it?" The waiters usually try to solve the problem, and sometimes offer a different dish. What's interesting to me is that you can talk about the problem without making a big deal out of it. The customers say what's bothering them, and the waiters don't take offence. **Lehe'alev** is "to feel hurt or offended" in English. This is connected to a word you may already have heard: **dugri**. To speak dugri is to say what you think in a direct and honest way. And in Israel, you can meet this attitude at the dinner table too. Okay, in the last part of today's episode, I want to talk about something else that has become part of food culture in Israel: Wolt, a food delivery company. If you've visited cities in Israel, you've probably noticed the many couriers in the streets. A lot of them ride bicycles or scooters, and you can recognise the Wolt couriers by their blue bags and clothes. Wolt started operating in Israel in 2018, with a small number of restaurants in Tel Aviv. Since then it has expanded a lot, and today you can order food from restaurants through it and also products from shops. Especially in Tel Aviv, it seems like the blue couriers are everywhere! Another interesting thing is that in many workplaces in Israel, especially in hi-tech, employees get a budget for food. That is, the employer pays part of their expenses on meals, and sometimes even all of them. Employees can use the budget through services like "Cibus" or "Ten Bis", to pay in restaurants or to order deliveries. So instead of preparing food at home and bringing it to work, a lot of employees order lunch to the office. And at lunchtime you can see many couriers arriving at the offices with bags of food. Of course, food deliveries exist in other countries too. But in the big cities in Israel, and especially in Tel Aviv, they've become a noticeable part of day to day life. That's everything for today's episode. How is it where you are? Is it usual to eat out? And is the food culture in your country more similar to the one in Israel or the one in England? I'd love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed the episode and learned something new. And as always, if you have ideas for topics for the next episodes, you're welcome to write to me. You can post a message on my website or comment here on the podcast. As always, you can find the words from the podcast, with examples, and also the transcript in English and in Hebrew, on my website. I'll put a link in the podcast description. Thank you very much for listening to another episode of the podcast "Yalla: Learning Hebrew with Steph", and until next time, take care and keep learning.