What food to expect in Palestine: “I have come to Palestine mid march and from that time onwards, the choice of fresh fruit and vegetables has increased by the day: from bananas grown in the Jordan valley near Jericho to pomegranates, orange sand lemons, peaches, cherries, medlar fruit, avocados and the like as well as fresh beans, spinach, cauliflower, tomatoes, small cucumbers, eggplants, courgettes, radish etc. you really find an enormous variety of fresh products that are very tasty since they are being harvested ripe and maintain their taste due to the short distances to the market. Along goes a great variety of herbs and spices: almost everything you may know from your country to things you find only around here.
The list could go on with all the different lentils, beans and peas, the grains and rice, the fine pastry with almonds and nuts, the cakes and biscuits and it would not end with the internationally used products that you find in the supermarkets. I hope that by now you understood that it is close to paradise! There is however a small restriction to be made: you have to be cooking yourself, go to good restaurants or live with a family in order to be able to try all those delicious things.
The most common staple food seems to be rice, mainly served with chicken. This is mainly due to the cost of meat -cow and lamb- which is as expensive as in Europe and thus nearly affordable for a lot of people. Another favorite are stuffed vine leaves and courgettes. Mixed cucumber and tomato salad is common as well as hummus (chickpea and sesame paste), eggs, eggplant cream and baked potatoes for breakfast. But don’t worry: you also find jams, Nutella, cornflakes or oats as well as yogurt and cheese… Needless to say that tea and coffee as well as soft drinks are easily available.
Let me just talk about some of the particular dishes you will certainly be treated to: the above mentioned chicken with rice is called Makluba, if it is cooked with cauliflower, eggplant and different spices, among others curcuma responsible for its special yellow color. The name of the dish is due to everything being cooked together in a large pot and then reversed onto a huge plate.
Another famous, more elaborate and expensive dish is Mansaf. The rice is being cooked with sheep meat and butterfat (Ghee)as well as a sort of dried white cheese, and it is being served with different sauces like green beans in tomato sauce, fried eggplant and tomatoes and hot yogurt sauce.
Even though more simple but nevertheless very tasty is Ousy, consisting of rice mixed with vegetables, like carrots, peas and corn as well as minced meat. The gastronomic highlights of my stay in Palestine expected me on the occasion of an invitation to a splendid dinner, where I was served stuffed chicken, stuffed courgettes and stuffed vine leaves: even though the main ingredients were rice, the different spices, nuts and almonds as well as the way of preparing the food -boiled, fried, baked- were responsible for a unique culinary experience.
All the food is either eaten with bread or a spoon, sometimes with a fork but never will you find a knife, since everything is being cut into small pieces or soft enough to be “cut” with the spoon.
Palestinian food wouldn’t be complete without naming at least one of the most famous sweets: Kunafa, a white cheese with a thick layer of semolina and sugar which is being eaten warm and originally from Nablus, but found all over Palestine.” This article was written by our volunteer Maria from Germany, May 2018
