Adventures in Israeli Cuisine, Or "What's This on My Plate?"

(If you're averse to stories of the gastronomically adventurous, do not read this post. Or rather, read this post, but don't blame me...)

When you keep kosher, one of the annoying things about living in the Diaspora is the fact that your restaurant and dining options are limited. Even if you are flexible enough to eat non-meat items in in non-kosher restaurants, you're constantly asking "is this vegetarian?" In Israel, especially in Jerusalem, this is less of a problem, with a host of available options (both prices and cuisines) of both meat and dairy varieties. It's one of the things that makes Jerusalem so appealing for kosher kids like me.

So last night I went to Marvad Haksamim, a tasty German Colony restaurant that offers a menu of both Yemenite and Moroccan cuisine, with two friends. And we ordered like kids in a candy store, sampling a bunch of things from their menu, including delicious couscous with vegetables, mejura (a lentil and rice combination) and "Jerusalem mixed grill." Now, whenever I've ordered mixed grill in the States, the mix consists of chicken, beef and sometimes lamb. At worst, the third item in the mix would be liver, which many people don't like, but I never minded.

But while the dish that arrived definitely seemed to include chicken and some delicious onions, the other components looked like a bunch of olives. On further inspection, the "olives" were definitely meat, but I had my first kosher "what kind of meat is this, anyway?" experience. Whatever it was, it was kosher, so I speared one on a fork and down it went. It wasn't bad--having been grilled with onions and spices, it was tasty. But the consistency...I couldn't shake the feeling that I was eating something that I wouldn't have ordered off the menu if it hadn't been camouflaged by my American assumption of what defined "mixed grill," something that I might have last seen when I dissected a frog back in high school.

I ate a few of them before my friends started poking at them and wondering what it was. They asked the waitress, who gave us a Hebrew word, "tchol." While the word didn't mean anything to me, I knew that
my initial instinct (which I admit, based on my frog experience, was "lungs") was wrong. I knew the words for "heart" and "kidneys" (thanks, Yom Kippur davening!), so I knew neither of them was on my plate. When we asked what that was in English, the waitress motioned to her midsection and talked about dvarim pnimi'im ("inner things"). This was not good. The description was basically the biological equivalent of calling something "mixed grill"--as if saying, "we know where it came from, generally, but we're not sure exactly where..."

That description was enough--we were done with unidentified meats. After our meal, the other waitress explained that "tchol" translated to spleen. That's right, spleen. While I could give you a biological definition, as a writer, I feel compelled to share that the spleen was traditionally considered to be the seat of ill-humour and melancholy.

So if I seem sad or ill-tempered, don't blame me. Blame it on the spleen.

And now, a link to the SNL transcript of "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber."

Comments

[harry]

Meurav Yerushalmi is one of my favorite Israeli dishes. For the best Mixed Grill you must go to Hatzot on Agripas! I must take you to my favorite place for Marak Regel. Yes. Foot soup.

[phyllis]

ewwww. as a vegetarian, i just think that's icky.

[Benji]

I already wanted no part of mixed grill. I now want less than no part.

[Jastrow1]

I had the exact same experience in a Jlem restaurant years ago. Waiter told us, "tchol," and my friend and I had to go home and look it up after dinner. Didn't manage to eat much spleen, though.

[Marisa]

Be grateful it was just spleen and not "pizzle".

Enjoy a wonderful birthday in Israel! Wishing you only good stuff this year!