What to Eat in Israel: Typical Israeli Food and Specialties

Sabich: Iraqi Sandwich with Eggplant and Egg

Sabich is a pita stuffed with fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, tahini and amba, a pickled mango sauce. Iraqi Jews came up with it in Israel - it was born in 1961 at a stall in Ramat Gan and it's named after the man who first sold it. Today Israel calls it the national sandwich, and in Jerusalem there's a kosher bistro that makes nothing else.

Sufganiyah: Israeli Doughnuts

It looks like an age-old Hanukkah tradition, but Israel's biggest holiday food was pushed by the trade unions in the 1920s to keep bakers employed. Sufganiyah is a yeast doughnut filled with jam or cream - next to the ones back home it's a hefty thing, and Israel eats millions of them in a season. I bought mine at a Jerusalem bakery where the line never went away.

Rugelach: The Chocolate Crescents of Ashkenazi Cooking

Rugelach are small yeasted pastries of Ashkenazi origin that made themselves at home in Israel: triangles of dough spread with chocolate and rolled up into little crescents. The name literally means "little horns" and shares a Slavic root with the Czech rohlík. I explain why they are not a Jewish croissant, why they are usually dairy-free and what a pack of mini rugelach tastes like warm from the oven in Jerusalem.

Bourekas: Filled Puff Pastry

In an Israeli bakery the shape tells you the filling: a triangle means cheese, a square potato. Bourekas, a filled parcel of flaky puff pastry, was brought to Israel by Sephardi Jews from the Ottoman Empire - along with a name that is grammatically a plural. And in Jerusalem there's a bistro that has been doing nothing else since 1959.

Bistro Ben-Sira Hummus, Jerusalem

Katzutz: Israeli Salad of Finely Diced Cucumbers and Tomatoes

Katzutz, Hebrew for "chopped", is a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes and onion cut into the smallest dice possible, with parsley, lemon and olive oil. In Israel it sits on the table with almost every meal, from the kibbutz breakfast to falafel in a pita. The world calls it Israeli salad, but its cousins get chopped all across the former Ottoman lands, from Turkey to India.

Israeli Wine: Kosher, Mevushal and Four Bottles from Jerusalem

Almost every bottle in an Israeli supermarket is kosher, and some of them are pasteurized so a non-Jewish waiter can pour them. Wine is made in five regions, but Jerusalem has a story of its own: the Shor family was pressing wine here before Baron Rothschild brought vines over from France. I'll explain what kosher and mevushal mean, and finish with four bottles from the Judean Hills.

Geula Bakery, Jerusalem

Israeli and Palestinian beer

Challah: The Braided Bread for Shabbat

Challah is a braided yeast bread of flour, eggs, oil and sugar that Jews in Israel and all over the world put on the table on Friday night and on holidays. It takes its name from the piece of dough separated from every batch as an ancient tax owed to the priests. The braid comes from medieval Central Europe, and the dough has no butter in it so that the bread can be eaten with meat.