Why can’t Palestinian chefs penetrate the boundaries of upscale dining in Israel?

Introduction

Professional cooking and ethnicity are generally considered incompatible. Ethnicity is taken as a sign of a lack of expertise in upscale cookery and as a reproduction of unaltered native dishes. Conversely, professional cooking creates expectations of culinary novelty and requires systemic training that grants acceptance into a community of practitioners. The case of ethnic chefs, therefore, encapsulates the tension between two contrasting identities which acquire their legitimacy from two contradictory poles in the field of gastronomy (Ray, 2016).

Palestinian chefs of upscale restaurants in Israel provide a good example of the alleged incompatibility between ethnic and professional identities. Visitors to Palestinian restaurants in Israel are used to waiters serving them a variety of salads, bread, olives, and pickles before taking their order, and expect these dishes to come free of charge. They also expect the overall price of the meal to be moderate compared to other restaurants in Israel. This is not the case in the upscale locales opened in the last four years by nine Palestinian chefs, who serve modern uptakes to traditional Palestinian food alongside dishes to which they add an “Arab touch.” These chefs play down their ethnicity and highlight their professional identity. They dress ethnicity as an exclusive set of knowledge to be used in certain terrains such as the ethnic restaurant.

This paper asks why these Palestinian chefs fail to reconfigure their native culinary knowledge as an invaluable asset that enables their restaurants to penetrate the realm of haute dining in Israel and to mark their kitchen as different. The reconfiguration of ethnicity as essential for redefining Palestinian cuisine in Israel as sophisticated and up-to-date, I argue, contradicts popular visions of Palestinian food as simple and inexpensive. The chefs see their restaurants as politically neutral locales for expressing professional creativity and autonomy. In contrast, their clients, Jews and Palestinians alike, see these restaurants as influenced by the social position Palestinians occupy in Israel. Most clients negate the idea of upscale Palestinian cuisine and of Palestinian chefs winning acceptance into the community of professional chefs. Although the chefs mobilize the growing numbers of foodies in Israel, as well as the nostalgia for dishes that have disappeared from domestic kitchens, Palestinian clients reject the presence of such foods in the realm of high dining for fear they will be taken as traditionalists.

Restaurants, ethnicity, and Palestinian food in Israel

Notions of ethnicity have been changing. From an inscribed category that marks social positioning, ethnicity has become increasingly seen as a toolkit of practical knowledge used to produce activity, domination, and difference. These become manageable by establishing and defining social boundaries between “us,” “our ancestors”, and “others” (Ray, 2016). In this process, ethnicity becomes an invaluable resource for making a living as members of ethnic communities, for example, by selling one’s foods in fabricated and commercial forms.

This notion of ethnicity is complicated in reference to Palestinian citizens of Israel. Being the only group on which an Israeli citizenship has been imposed, this not only has marked them as outsiders to the national collective, but has also affected their ability to mobilize ethnicity as an asset for improving positioning.

The Israeli establishment opted to create an essentialist and uncontested national identity for Jews. Immigrants were expected to assimilate and to integrate into the dominant culture by relinquishing their particular past and traditions. Yet, immigrants differed in their perception as equipped with the necessary capital to become Israelis. Mizrachi immigrants, for example, were considered by the establishment as “one of us” for being Jewish but also as “the other” for being “tainted” by traditionalism that posed a threat to the seemingly Western character of the state (Leon, 2008; Shenhav and Hever, 2012). The arrival of Ethiopian Jews intensified manifestations of racism, causing some to develop a Black African identity (Ben Eliezer, 2008; Mizrachi and Zawdu, 2012; Ratner, 2015).

Although Palestinians who stayed in Israel in 1948 were granted Israeli citizenship, they have never been perceived as eligible for social inclusion. Even when affirmative actions have been filed, requiring institutions to recruit them and enable their promotion, they have remained both inside and outside of Israeli society. Like the Ethiopians, they have developed an identity of their own, in their case in reference to a future independent Palestinian state. The latter connects them with a broader entity and a “double consciousness,” providing structural opportunities to partake in wider cultural environments to which they belong yet have limited physical access (Amal, 2007; Bishara, 1993; Mizrachi and Herzog, 2012; Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker, 2002).

The Palestinian bourgeoisie have become familiar with the hegemonic culture. They have learned to monopolize the national narrative to serve their own purposes and seek segmented participation in Israeli society. A rise in the level of education and growth in the number of Palestinian professionals have brought growing awareness of political apparatuses, raised political consciousness, and stimulated organizations to achieve civil rights.

Nonetheless, Palestinians are still excluded by social and symbolic boundaries in market and political participation, sometimes at the cost of lowering support for the Palestinian national project (Abu Asbah et al., 2014; Abu-Saad, 2006; Ganem and Levin-Rozalis, 2014; Halabi, 2017; Harbon et al., 2013; Jabareen, 2006; Levi, 2005; Mizrachi and Herzog, 2012). Mundane encounters between Palestinians and Jews are mostly limited to mixed cities, where both ethnicities live, or to universities. In these settings, the main challenge for Palestinians is to maintain their dignity while enlarging the scope of their participation in the public sphere. As members of a stigmatized national minority, their sense of collective identity is distinguished from the Jewish collective (Halabi, 2017; Harbon et al., 2013; Mizrachi and Herzog, 2012: 423–424).

The position that different cuisines occupy in Israel is often shaped by the status of their practitioners and the connotations they evoke (Avieli, 2018). For example, Eastern European food in Israel has become a means to reconnect with the world that Diaspora Jews were expected to leave behind. Only in the last 10 years has this been identified with nostalgia for a vanished food culture. Mizrachi Jews, conversely, have continued practicing their cuisines and also commodified them as ethnic dishes sold at affordable prices. Though they were considered unsuitable for entering the realm of upscale dining, these kitchens empowered Mizrachi chefs, providing them with the option of crossing culinary boundaries, and thus becoming active culinary agents engaged in the formation of an Israeli cuisine (Gvion, 2015, 2018a, 2018b).

Since the late 1970s, cuisines which do not represent communities in Israel have won popularity. Italian food, served in large portions and dressed with local spices, have become popular because they also provide an experience of escapism and a sense of partaking in a larger Mediterranean food culture (Avieli, 2018). The acceptance of Chinese food coincides with the process of globalization in Israeli culture. Though first perceived as a representation of other’ nations (not unlike “McDonaldization”), its popularity from the first decade of the 21st century revealed the creation of a cosmopolitan eater who seeks new experiences, such that dining in a Chinese restaurant serves as a symbolic marker in the sphere of social stratification and status distinction (Grosglik and Ram, 2015). In contrast, migrant laborers and asylum seekers have had little impact on the Israeli restaurant scene. As a result of their limited contact with Israelis, they are pictured as consuming ingredients Israelis find repulsive, such as dog meat (Avieli, 2018). Moreover, the small number of eateries they have opened failed to attract Israelis and were often closed for lack of compliance with local regulations (Kritzman-Amir and Barak-Bianco, 2017; Sabar and Posner, 2013).

While ethnic chefs and migrant cooks are often considered inferior outsiders, inside the nation they can become the locus of our longing if touched by some measures of modernity (Ray, 2016). Their participation in the culinary scene does mark their otherness, but it also encourages them to create commodified and consumerist interactions with an “other” culinary culture (Dewey, 2012; Ferrero, 2002; Gaytan, 2008; Girardelli, 2004; Highmore, 2009; Narayan, 1997). The television program Restaurant Makeover, for instance, “ethnicizes” restaurants by reconstructing, cultivating and containing ethnicity. Identity, food, and décor are both modernized and folded into signs of difference which are celebrated but also constrained and contradictory, turning ethnicity into a commodity as dishes become part of mainstream culture (Brayton and Millington, 2011).

By collaborating in the construction of their public image, ethnic, and minority restaurateurs often wish to use professional cooking to open up routes for upward mobility and instill their own meaning of authenticity (Ray, 2016; Ray and Srinivas, 2012). Restaurateurs in Tijuana, for instance, eschew stereotypical border food in favor of an imaginary political geography of Mexico, created by serving dishes associated with Central Mexico. These dishes, acting as social devices which complicate conventional understanding of Mexican food, maintain and create authenticity by setting rules, and reinventing traditions that reflect Mexicanness (Walker, 2013).

The case of Palestinian chefs in Israel exemplifies how certain ethnicities are limited in their ability to eschew common perceptions about their cuisine. The Palestinian food narrative in Israel is embodied in the narrative of the Nakba ¹ which emphasizes the agony over their non-recognized homeland and the construction of a national Palestinian taste (Ben-Ze'ev, 2004). Food is also used to paint the Palestinians as a group that wishes to apply a modern lifestyle yet in articulation with its food culture. However, the Palestinian restaurant, regardless of its targeted clientele, tends to operate according to social capital, taste, and memories long coded in Arab culture. These codes enable restaurateurs and diners to introduce narratives of alternative modernity that complement and restructure food traditions and construct the locale as an authentic Palestinian space where modern codes of behavior are selectively applied. Restaurateurs have reinforced the social relations embedded in the production of food by refraining from serving dishes that are traditionally eaten at home, expecting the consumption of food restricted to traditional bodily practices characteristic of Palestinian society. They have gained control over the commodification of Palestinian dishes and the dissemination of culinary knowledge beyond the Palestinian community. Their position of knowledge has also contributed to the widespread belief that Palestinian food is limited (Gvion, 2009, 2014). Simultaneously, some Palestinian dishes, such as hummus, have been appropriated as icons of Israeli culture and even distributed as a commercially packaged food, or as part of a global trend of ethical and reflexive food consumption (Grosglik, 2011; Gvion, 2009).

The growing participation of Palestinian women in the job market, followed by a decline in the preparation of traditional dishes, has created an opportunity to offer upgraded versions of traditional dishes in restaurants. The latter are expected, not only to nurture nostalgic feelings among Palestinians, but also to monopolize growing curiosity among Jews regarding different cuisines. However, the term haute cuisine conveys a social hierarchy maintained through the use of costly ingredients and elaborate presentations, as well as a gastronomic “high” associated with sublime pleasures of the table (Pilcher, 1998). Its practice is based on the possession of a certain social and cultural capital embedded in elegance and knowledge that cannot be obtained through formal training. The expansion of tastes has not undermined taste hierarchies. Therefore, ethnic and minority chefs are still seen as lacking the necessary social capital to understand what will appeal to local clientele (Bennett et al., 2009; Johnston and Baumann, 2010; Ray, 2012, 2016).

Since ethnicity is a sign of lack of expertise in haute restaurant cookery, ethnic chefs become self-conscious in avoiding their ethnic ghetto and often return to it only after they have proven that they can cook. They acquire their legitimacy from both the ethnic pole, watching significant others with the aim of reproducing the unaltered original, and the professional pole that emphasizes systemic training into the practices of an expert group and rewards originality. Therefore, it is nearly impossible for them to succeed in cooking foods other than their native cuisine (Ray, 2016).

This article, then, shows that Palestinian chefs mobilize ethnicity to showcase their uniqueness and difference. They hope their occupation enables them to partake in Israeli social life as professionals. Through their restaurants, they imagine Israel as a nation-state where Palestinians, and their cuisine in its sophisticated version, are accepted. However, their clients, both Jews and Palestinians, see Palestinian ethnicity as restricting the chefs’ professional autonomy, expecting them to serve dishes they associate with Palestinian restaurant food.

Methodology

Data were gathered through detailed and open-ended interviews with nine Palestinian chefs who managed upscale restaurants and catering businesses in Israel. Their menus introduced upgraded or modified versions of traditional Palestinian dishes. The female chef among them chose to operate a catering business and one chef opened an Italian restaurant. All but two of the chefs were in their 30s: one was in his mid-20s and the other was approaching 50. All but two worked, prior to opening their place, in upscale restaurants in Israel and abroad, where they familiarized themselves with world cuisines. Their restaurants, located in Tel Aviv-Jaffa or in the Galilee, targeted mostly middle-class Jewish professionals and tourists. With the exception of the Italian restaurant that was popular among Palestinians, their few Arab customers consisted of middle-class, urban Christian professionals.

All the restaurants but one were spacious and of modern design. The menus included traditional labor-intensive Palestinian dishes that were originally part of the domestic culinary repertoire. Moreover, the chefs gave “an Arab touch” to dishes that were popular in other upscale restaurants in Israel. They all employed Jewish and Palestinian cooks and waiters and claimed the atmosphere in their kitchens was friendly. Four of them also owned a typical Palestinian restaurant which guaranteed them a steady income.

I reached the chefs after reading an article in the press about four of them. I also contacted the female chef, whose food I had eaten, and asked her for an interview and for referrals to her colleagues. The interviews lasted around three hours. We talked about the chefs’ career paths, the circumstances that brought them to cooking, the difficulties they encountered along the way, their reasons for opening an upscale restaurant, and their professional and personal aspirations. We spoke about the position Palestinian food occupies in the contemporary Israeli food scene, the measures they take to expose Jews and tourists to upscale Palestinian dishes and their clients’ reactions to them. I further asked them whether they prioritize their professional or their ethnic identity, as well as how their clients react to each identity. Some were reluctant at first to discuss the interconnectedness between ethnicity and entitlement to professional fulfillment. As the interview progressed they voluntarily talked about their failure to attract Jewish and Palestinian customers, the patronizing attitudes of their Jewish clients and the measures they took to guarantee their professional autonomy. Data were coded according to major themes found in all interviews. Each identified theme was matched along with other themes.

The daily experience of Palestinian chefs in Israel

The case of Palestinian chefs in Israel is a good example of how ethnicity can deny qualified chefs professional evolvement and acceptance into the realm of haute cuisine. Although cooking has been a popular occupation among Palestinian men in Israel, the majority of my respondents became chefs because their ethnicity prevented them from getting the jobs they had trained for. It is only when practicing cooking as professionals that they redefined their ethnicity as an asset that marked their cooking as different. However, after opening their restaurants, the chefs realized they do not serve as locales for demonstrating creativity, professional proficiency, and excellence – all means for achieving individual upward mobility and social acceptance. Rather, clients perceive them as spaces meant to conform to the popular image of the Palestinian restaurant which denies them professional autonomy. Moreover, the frequency of visitors is related to political circumstances. Finally, the chefs believe their Arab customers resent the mobilization of native cookery knowledge for the purpose of creating culinary distinctions, because it interferes with the clients’ attempts to break away from tradition and adopt a modern lifestyle.

Conclusion

This article looked at Palestinian chefs who practice upscale Palestinian cookery in Israel as exemplifying the limitations certain ethnicities pose upon the propagation of cuisines and the producing of difference. Although cooking has always been a popular occupation among Palestinian men in Israel, for these restaurateurs, ethnicity is both enabling and constraining. On the one hand, it allows them to pursue an independent professional career, given the popularity of Palestinian food in Israel, where otherwise they often encounter barriers to professional mobility. On the other hand, their ethnicity gives rise to various assumptions, expectations, and sanctions in periods of conflict, all of which limit their autonomy, prevent them from participating in the realm of upscale dining, and harm them financially.

In the long run, the manifestation of difference fails them. Their clients, Jews and Palestinians alike, expect them to prioritize the ethnic component of their identity and minimize their professional ambitions, believing that the chefs’ entitlement to professional autonomy is restricted to what has come to be seen as a Palestinian restaurant. The reconfiguration of traditional culinary knowledge as a professional toolkit that enables culinary distinction raises objections among Jews, who refuse to accept Palestinian food as worthy of the realm of upscale dining. Palestinians, conversely, see eating out as characteristic of a modern lifestyle which interferes with the consumption of traditional dishes in general, and in restaurants in particular. These reservations coincide with the perception of Palestinian cuisine as lacking finesse and its professional practitioners as failing to acquire the necessary cultural capital to participate in the realm of upscale dining.

A growing corpus of literature has shown how ethnic and professional identities are seen as incongruent. Palestinian chefs of upscale restaurants encapsulate the tension between these contrasting identities. They emphasize the professional component of their identity and dress ethnicity as an exclusive set of knowledge they introduce into terrains that are supposedly politically neutral. In their restaurants, they aim at drawing an imaginary political geography of Israel, which includes them as professionals and carriers of an ethnic cuisine. Their reconfiguration of traditional Palestinian culinary knowledge is embedded in a web of social relations and negotiations over the essence of Palestinian cookery in Israel. In eschewing common Palestinian restaurant foods in favor of dishes that enable them to distinguish themselves from popular Palestinian eateries, the chefs hope to establish a unique setting that suggests alternative images to Palestinian cuisine. They realize, however, that regardless of their level of proficiency, their ethnicity denies them the option of producing difference. Notwithstanding their efforts to be addressed as professionals, even if distancing themselves from the Palestinian national narrative, their customers prioritize the ethnic component and see their cumulative knowledge and credentials as masking their essential identity.