The Hummus Wars
In Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Adam Sandler plays an Israeli counter-terrorist who secretly dreams of being a hair stylist and goes to the U.S. to find his dream job. Just about every scene in the movie uses sight gags with hummus. Hummus is one of the key foods used in the movie to remind viewers where Zohan came from. He eats it, puts it in his hair, uses it for sex, brushes his teeth with it. It’s beyond ridiculous. At one point in the movie, Zohan realizes that he and the Israelis he befriends in New York have more in common with Palestinians than with other Americans. And one of the areas of commonality is their love of hummus.
Unfortunately, in the real world, hummus is not bringing people together across the political spectrum. Instead, people are using hummus as a flashpoint depending on their point of view in the Hamas-Israel war. Recently signs appeared in San Francisco, calling for a boycott of Israeli businesses. The signs read that, “Restaurants and businesses claiming to sell ‘Israeli’ food, produce, olive oil, and products are a part of an ongoing colonial campaign of stealing, appropriating, and profiting off Palestinian food and culture as a means of erasing Palestinian existence.”
Hummus is made from chickpeas. In Israel, it is eaten at any meal, even for breakfast, with a variety of salads. There is no way to know who invented hummus first, but if you ask someone from the Middle East, they will tell you it came from their people. Israelis claim hummus as their own but so do many others, including the Lebanese and the Egyptians. (See article) This Egyptian cookbook from the 13th century contains a recipe with chickpeas for something it termed “hummus kasa.” Some however can’t agree that Israelis should even be allowed to call hummus theirs and accuse Israel of cultural appropriation because they sell and eat hummus. They have said that Israel is colonizing hummus. Seriously.
In 2008, Lebanon sought to have the EU declared hummus to be Lebanese. To draw attention, the Lebanese created the largest dish of hummus, weighing in at 2,000 kg to win recognition in the Guiness Book of World Records. Not to be outdone, a restaurant in Israel counter-attacked with a 4,000 kg plate of hummus inside a satellite dish. The final offensive came back from Lebanon with a 10,452 kg dish of hummus — apparently the number of square kilometers in Lebanon. This still holds the Guiness World Record since 2010. (See article).
If you want to have really authentic hummus, you need to make it yourself or find it in a restaurant. The kind you can buy in a store in the U.S. just doesn’t cut it. It lacks the creaminess and the drizzled olive oil over the top adds to the great taste as you dip the pita bread into it. But eating hummus today can be a fraught experience depending on where you go because of identity politics taken into the food realm. Israeli hummus is typically smooth and has more than a hint of garlic whereas other hummus from around the Middle East has a more lemony taste. It’s all good but depends what you prefer.
The fact that a restaurant is either owned by a Jew, an Israeli or serves Israeli food now apparently merits a boycott. Some of these owners have protested, saying they are just trying to make a living and not taking any type of stand. One owner explained that they are just selling bagels — they aren’t trying to do anything beyond that. (See article). For those arguing that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, it is hard to see how the two aren’t the same in these boycotts. This is happening all across the country. Jewish and Israeli restaurant owners are facing vandalism and boycotts in San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia.
I don’t really care who made hummus first or whether it is more authentic one way or another. But boycotting Israeli and Jewish restaurants because they are selling Jewish and Israeli food is wrong and doesn’t solve anything.
