1 September 2024, NIICE Commenntary 9485
Debasmita Nath
Popularized in academia by sociologist Michaela DeSoucey, gastronationalism; food and nationalism was conceptualized as a tool to “capture a juxtaposition of the dialectic produced by globalism’s homogenizing tendencies and the appearance of new forms of identity politics”. The labeling of food as “national brands” is found everywhere, in Italian pizzas, Mexican tacos and Japanese sushi, conveying a distinct image of the nation. Governments practice labeling food as a soft power tool, based on national origin, aiming to promote a particular image of their state with curated national or local food items, as in the case of the ‘Global Thai’ program and preserving food items/ culture as a part of the nation’s heritage like the French ‘Foie Gras’.
Gastronationalism, however, does not limit itself to elaborate government policies. Food, in its daily domestic and mundane practices might not seem politically significant, but manifests as a “representation of a nation that creates a sense of shared national identity”. In the 19th CE, French Gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat –Savarin said, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are”, indicating what we eat (and don’t or can’t) is symbolic of who we are or who we wish to become.
The historical overlap of the Levant, geographically, economically and culturally has had its impact in shaping its cuisine, making the delineation of the origin of most dishes, rather difficult. Staples like Falafel and Hummus are enjoyed by Arabs, Palestinians, Lebanese as well as their neighbours. Shared food history and desire for unique nationalistic identities lead to playful spars among these nations. However, the contesting and challenging of ownership and authenticity of ‘national food’ spurs when these debates involve Israel, for the beloved Falafel has been symbolically, a proxy for the Israeli occupation in Palestine and currently, outright war.
Cooking Up Conflict
October 7, 2023, saw a lethal surprise attack from the blockaded Gaza Strip to the nearby Israeli towns. This firing by the militant group called Hamas had led to a speculated death of 1200 people and abduction of over 200 people, some of them minors as hostages. The stunned Israeli state launched airstrikes in Gaza; in retaliation, with its prime minister saying the country is now at war with Hamas and vowing to inflict an “unprecedented price.”
The conflict between Israel and Palestine, however, finds its roots back in the 19th century, marked significantly by the 1947 UN ‘Partition Plan’ which proposed to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. Israel declared independence in 1948, leading to the first Arab-Israeli War which ended in Israel’s victory but displacement of 750,000 Palestinians and division of the territory into the State of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Tensions have been simmering ever since and saw eruptions of regional conflicts that include the Suez Crisis of 1956, Six Day War of 1967, Yom Kippur War of 1973, the last of which resulted the thirty-year long conflict between Egypt and Israel, however, kept the question of self-determination and ‘independence’ of Palestine, unresolved.
The area has seen two intifadas and multiple violent clashes over the years, including the conflict of Israel and Hamas in 2014, Israeli attack on Palestinian demonstrators in 2018, followed by a similar instance in 2021. 2023 Hamas attack and its aftermath has taken an unprecedented level of instability, violence and death in the history of conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians
“Palatte is Political”
Around two decades post the Israeli- Arab war, the ‘60s saw a systemic effort to build a collective ‘Israeli’ identity, of which, falafel became the edible ‘poster boy’. As a part of the nation-building campaign, falafel was nationalized into Israeli culture; it was made symbolic of “Israeliness”. The state’s exclusive claim on the chickpea-based snack started with songs like, And We Have falafel and currently is done by postcards labeling it as “Israel’s national snack” and McDonald’s ‘Israelized’ menu including items like Kosher McFalafel sandwich.
Culinary author Reem Kassis, in her article in The Washington Post, argues that in the wake of the creation of a Jewish state and their new Jewish–Israeli identity, food was used to create a sense of Israeli nationalism, in the early to mid 20th century. The attraction to the humble Palestinian street foods like hummus, za’atar, and falafel over the more elaborate dishes like msakhan, maftool and maqulbeh is too understood by the Jewish immigrants’ shift from the “rich” Eastern European food of their ‘original countries’ towards the simple diet of the locals of Palestine. This is further elaborated by British Jewish cookbook writer Claudia Roden who said in a documentary, “many Jewish migrants wanted to forget their old food because it reminded them of persecution”. She further elaborates that while it can be counter-argued that the Mizrahi Jews brought these predominantly Arab dishes to Israel, just like shakshuka, schnitzel, kebabs and burekas from North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Balkans respectively. However, the culinary repertoire of the Mizrahi Jews did not include hummus and falafels before the 1950s as they were consumed predominantly in areas uninhabited by them. While the food of Israel, much like the state, is a mash of multiple cultures brought in by immigrants, the irony is that this newly constructed ‘Israeli’ food culture, nationalized and propagated globally as a proud byproduct of immigrant forces, fail to highlight or even acknowledge the “most important influence- that of the local Palestinian food culture.”
Besides the global economic perspective of advertising food in the form of nationalism; promoting and profiting off of the idea that a state is the “natural and obvious political geographic expression of a singular nation”, say ‘Indian butter chicken and mango lassi’, the association with and promotion of food, as national objects through culinary symbols and narratives serve not only to distinguish a nation’s culinary heritage but also assert its legitimacy and historical continuity.
Palestinian cuisines, parts of the larger Syrian cuisine, are broadly a diffusion of Damascus and Aleppo cuisines and by extension, so are most dishes cooked in the area of modern-day Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Regional variations and innovations are seen in the inclusion of locally grown products of each region. However, both Kassis and Massad argue in their articles, the difference between cultural diffusion and cultural appropriation. Whereas the visible similarity of cuisines in the Levant can be an example of diffusion, appropriation relies on exploitation and consequently, erasure of the other culture. It is, therefore, not a good taste to present dishes of Palestine as “Israeli” under the claim of regional integration of the Jewish Israelis in the Levant as it “not only denies the Palestinian contribution to Israeli cuisine but it erases our very history and existence”. The notion that “in the food of their Palestinian neighbours, [Israeli Jews] found a connection to the land and their ancestors”, is rather flawed as Palestine is neither treated nor acknowledged like the neighbours of Israel, rather a neo-colonial occupation, with Israel possessing Palestinians’ land, food and lives. Especially, presently (and as it has been forever), Palestinian food is rare to come by, at least by their names. Often in restaurant menus, these dishes are clubbed under the oversimplified section of “Middle Eastern”, encompassing the significant geographical chunk from North Africa to Central Asia, or worse, “Mediterranean”, to make it more palatable to the West by disassociating from the Arabs, nestled in the familiarity of Greece or Spain.
Food for Thought
For the occupied, war-stricken Palestinians, food has been a way of reclaiming their country, a state that does not exist, and a sense of national identity. Food plays a proxy with which larger issues can be brought onto the table. Precisely why Israel’s claim on traditional Palestinian dishes as their own is an issue with bigger geopolitical implications; First the land, then the lives, now the existence? So, who is more deserving of calling hummus their own? The locals of Palestine or the Allepian Jews who, in the 1950s and 60s, arrived in Jerusalem after having lived in Syria for a millennia? “Neither”, said Israeli chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi, along with his Palestinian co-author Sami Tamimi. “Nobody ‘owns’ a dish because it is very likely that someone else cooked it before them and another person before that”, they said. The perception of claiming ownership of cuisines being futile and irrelevant to geopolitical and/or humanitarian discourses, poses a question as to whom does it not matter- to the Israeli food market giants like Strauss and Osem start a ‘Hummus War’ to increase their shares in the American hummus market? The same companies who are marketing and profiting off of ‘stealing’ Palestinian cuisine as their own? Or for the Palestinians, whose national identity, in the absence of a sovereign state, is vital for a sense of rootedness. The ones who are deprived of claiming their own food in an Israel-friendly, West-dominated world?
Debasmita Nath is a Research Intern at NIICE.
