I recently got into a heated discussion with a friend from Lebanon, after I told him that, for my money, Tel Aviv Glatt Kosher Grill made some of the best hummus in town.
Our discussion turned into a heated argument, as he insisted that Israel should not call its mashed chickpeas, flavored with tahini, garlic and lemon juice “hummus,” since hummus is a dish Israel “stole” (his word!) from other countries in the region. Aside from the obvious fact that food knows no national boundaries, there’s the clear fact that hummus was born, if anywhere, in Egypt, where it’s described in a 13th-century cookbook from Cairo.
But beyond that, hummus has been a standard in the cooking of what used to be called The Levant – which covers a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. Claiming hummus as yours is like arguing that your forebears invented bread or the notion of drinking water.
It’s a dish that belongs to the whole region – with, of course, sundry local variations, like a hot sauce called skhug among Yemenites, along with hummus flavored with paprika, with fava beans, with beets, even with ground beef.
In Hawthorne, there’s the Hummus House, with nine variations. Hummus belongs to all of us.
It was about four years ago that the lively Israeli hot spot called Itzik Hagadol shut down, to be replaced in time by a branch of the Israeli hot spot Tel Aviv Glatt Kosher Grill – one Israeli eatery took over from another. (Other Tel Aviv Glatt Kosher Grills are in Valley Village and Woodland Hills, with a Fish Grill in Tarzana.)
Clearly, the space has hummus in its DNA. And that’s far from the only Israeli element of the Grill. Like the Carmel Market of Tel Aviv – the central market around which the life of the city revolves – Tel Aviv Glatt Kosher Grill is open Sunday through Friday, and closed on Saturday for the Sabbath.
Like the Carmel Market, it’s a place filled with noise, with wonderful smells, with crowds, and with…
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