Crazy Salad

Fabled street fare, here and there.

by Bruce Schimmel

TEL AVIV — The perfect Philly street food to bring to your friends and family depends on how far you've got to go. Traveling to Trenton, you can pack a hoagie, pretzel, cheesesteak or even a hot kielbasa. But if you're going to Tel Aviv — Philly's sister city in Israel — what can you schlep across seven time zones and sneak by grumpy custom officials who haven't the wisdom to recognize Cheez Whiz as a perfectly edible substance?

To my mind, Philadelphia's best ambassador of street food to go any distance is Goldenberg's Peanut Chews. Completely authentic and easy to pack, these treats are cherished from Tokyo to Paris, I've found. What's more, these candy bars make dandy edible baksheesh that I've traded for extras from taxi drivers, desk clerks and food-cart vendors.

Once in Tel Aviv, you'll find a lot of great street food to barter for. The best cooking is the food you buy in streets of this city on the Mediterranean.

In many ways, Tel Aviv resembles a down-at-the-heels French beach resort, with most of its tonier restaurants following suit. Most dishes are phony French, ersatz Italian or some nasty variation of Eastern European. You won't find the wonders of pastrami, bagels and blintzes. These delights come from the far reaches of Romania, so edible examples are hard to get anywhere in the Middle East.

Face it: The gospel truth about Jewish cooking is that it's mostly bad news. After all, we Jews are the people who brought to the world matzo, a desiccated flatbread that is supposed to remind us of suffering. While it's true that in biblical lore we delighted in manna, even our most learned rabbis have yet to figure out what that stuff actually was.

Though the the art of cuisine in Israel remains impoverished, this land of milk and honey overflows with the most beautiful ingredients. Visit a market and you'll find truckloads of an astonishing variety of fresh vegetables and fruit, from limas to lychees; a cornucopia of nuts and seeds; and rare herbs and spices piled high in pointy mounds like little minarets.

For freshness, think of California, but for variety, consider that Israel has connected trade routes from Asia to Europe, Northern Europe to Africa from time immemorial. It's all here; it's a pity that few know what to do with it.

If American cooking blends East with West in a melting pot, Israel dresses its bounty in a crazy salad that reflects the Jewish state's diverse demographics. And salad is what this nation makes best, anytime. Salad for breakfast, lunch or dinner, it's always different and almost always fresh: bell peppers of every hue, sweet tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers, onions to take your breath away, earthy chunks of vinegared beets and mountains of delicate greens. And such pickles!

Beautiful cauliflower, golden with turmeric; spicy, iridescent green baby peppers, thick slices of bright carrots, and olives of every taste, size, texture and hue. For prepared salads, there are huge vessels of spiced yogurt, cauldrons of smoky eggplant (baba ghanoush), bowls of silky sesame butter (tahini) and platters of that magic, creamy paste that binds it all together (hummus).

Of all these foods, hummus — made of mashed chickpeas, infused with olive oil and brightened with citrus — is probably the most universally used and beloved. Jews of all stripes, Arabs of any inclination, almost everyone here loves hummus. The humble chickpea, in all its incarnations, is the real king of cuisine. Cold, hot, mashed and fried, the chickpea is at every meal. As a dressing, it binds together Israel's crazy salads; as fried balls, it is the centerpiece of one of this country's greatest treats: falafel.

Like a Philadelphia cheesesteak, falafel doesn't transport well. Sorry. A falafel in Philly is about as tasty as a cheesesteak in Israel. Just as there's a secret technique in shredding beef and sweating onions, there's an equally occult art to grinding spices and mashing garlic to make those chickpea fritters.

There's still another reason why falafel doesn't fly in Philly. In America, it is a just another sandwich. But in Israel, the fried fritters, tahini, shredded lettuce and hummus are just the beginning. Then you heap on the treats.

At most stands, it's usually all you can eat: Crisp fried eggplant, fiery peppers, grilled potatoes, slaws of white, green and red, and, of course, pickles of every temper. For about $2.50, all this and more spills out of your pita as you munch your way down the street, trailing a path of glory that is Israel's gorgeous, crazy salad.

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