« Confessions of a Former CSA Member
Which comes first — Halakha or Community? »

Meet me at the buffet

by Leah Koenig · May 4th, 2007
Israel

The Arava Institute Hazon Israel Ride has reached Mitzpe Ramon, where riders will spend Shabbat relaxing their tired muscles. Already, riders from last year are talking about the hotel’s buffet - a feast that includes multiple types of Israeli salad and coleslaw, labneh with zatar, labneh with dill, roasted vegetables, various soups, sprawling bread baskets, smoked salmon and - so I’ve heard - hot chocolate cake. At breakfast.

These shmorgs, which I’m realizing are typical of hotels across Israel, are shocking in choice and quantity, and stuff even the pickiest of patrons into blissful oblivion. A few riders commented, only somewhat jokingly, that they actually gained weight at last year’s Israel Ride, because they ate so much at the hotel buffets!

Were I back home and enjoying better internet access than the hotels have (apparently they spend far more on food than wifi connection), I’d try to find out where this culture of food excess comes from in Israel. Is it a parallel to the excess of American resort locations like Las Vegas and Disney Land? Is it leftover-compensation for times when Jews did not have the opportunity to enjoy food to excess? It is simply an unexplainable cultural anomaly? I’d love to hear some explanations - or descriptions from reader’s experiences at the Israeli hotel shmorg.

Print this post

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Meet me at the buffet”

  1. Michael Green Says:
    May 5th, 2007 at 2:03 pm

    Leah, your description of the buffet has worked up my appetite!

    This reminds me of when I stayed at Herods Hotel in Eilat 3 years ago with family. The stress of sharing a room with my (Israeli) mum was exacerbated by her insisting on waking me up at 8am each morning to dine at a buffet that sounds much like yours. She was incensed at my repeated refusal to join her for the morning feast, despite the fact that I’d been out partying til 4am. I lay the blame for our increasingly frayed relationship at that time squarely at the door of the buffet.

    They may be a mouth-watering anomaly, but too often they’re more than my English stomach can take!

  2. Daniel Burstyn Says:
    May 11th, 2007 at 1:11 am

    I think you’re right to point this out, Leah. Israelis are, according to the newspapers, second only to Americans in obesity. I think this stems from two pieces of cultural baggage that we carry, and that have morphed into cultural spare tires, as it were.

    The first is the second-generation after the Shoah kind of feeling, e.g. the Polish mother (Ima Polaniya, as we call her here - in the US, I think you call her “Jewish Mother”) complex - “ess, ess mein kind!” or “what do you mean, coming over and not tasting a piece of cake?” Playwright Hanoch Levin made a lot of mileage on this kind of character in the 1970s, and he’s seen as the Shakespeare of modern Israel.

    The second thing follows right on the first - following the years of “Tzena” rationing in the 1950s, that came immediately after the years of the Shoah/WWII and the Independence struggle, people here have a very strong feeling that they must not be anyone’s “freier” (not to be confused with a “fryer” chicken - called “pargit” in Hebrew). A Freier (from the Yiddish - someone who does favors for free) is a very negative thing in Israel, (though less so today than 20 years ago) - something you should never want to be. A Freier is someone who goes without something that is being given away for free - if it’s free, then you’d better take it. In addition, a Freier would let you cut in line in front of him/her. A Freier would let you have the last piece of cake - just like that Polish mother I just mentioned.

    The “I’m not your Freier” mentality was reinforced by a series of satirical comedies from - you guessed right - the 1970s and early 1980s. The venerable TV series “Lul,” “HaGashash HaChiver” comedy trio, with TV specials, movies, and routines, and movies like “Eskimo Limon,” “Givat Chalfon,” and “Metzitzim,” as well as the higher-brow psychological comedies of Levin, all contributed to this mentality - and to the expectation that when you pay for a hotel room, you had better get the finest breakfast spread. The idea is that you stuff your cooler with all that good stuff and eat it on the beach for “Aruchat Eser” - the 10 o’clock coffee break that precedes your equally large, heavy on the meat 3pm lunch. Because you never know - there might be a war, and you might get called up to miluim before dinner time (even though you’re over 55 and were released from miluim 20 years ago).

    That’s how Israelis think vacation is supposed to work.

Leave a Reply

Join us for Hazon's Food Conference: Click here for more info

Advertise on The Jew & The Carrot