The Israeli Career of Hummus: Colonial Appropriation, Authenticity, and Distinction

How did an Arab dish become an Israeli culinary passion? Less than a century ago, hummus and other Palestinian staples were often met with disinterest and sometimes outright rejection among Zionist settlers. Yet for modern-day Israelis, hummus has become a dish that is both everyday and iconic, intertwined with cultural perceptions of authenticity, indigeneity, and masculinity.

The Israeli Career of Hummus tracks how hummus has turned from an ＂Arab＂ or ＂Oriental＂ food into a national symbol and culinary cult in Israel. The Israeli Career of Hummus traces how hummus has turned from an ＂Arab＂ or ＂Oriental＂ food into a national symbol and culinary cult in Israel. Rather than regard culinary appropriation as a necessary outcome of land colonization, author Dafna Hirsch instead examines how changing gastronomic, economic, and political factors intersected with material and cultural production in a multilayered and socially stratified colonial context. Departing from the thesis of cultural erasure of hummus’s Arab or Palestinian provenance, Hirsch shows how the Arab identity of hummus functions as a semiotic resource, which is sometimes suppressed and at other times leveraged to lend authenticity to hummus-and thus to its consumers.

Shedding new light on the sociohistorical process of culinary appropriation amidst settler colonialism and nation building, The Israeli Career of Hummus invites readers to consider the complex trajectory and multiple factors and mediators that transformed a humble staple into an emotionally charged and politically contested culinary icon.

Dafna Hirsch is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication at the Open University of Israel. She is the author of ＂We Are Here to Bring the West＂ Hygiene Education and Nation Building in the Jewish Society of Mandate and editor of Entangled Histories in Palestine/Israel: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives.