R E S E A R C H E S S A Y | Nir Avieli, Ben Gurion University, Israel

The Hummus Wars Revisited: Israeli-

Arab Food Politics and Gastromediation

Abstract: The state of Israel has been involved in a long-standing attention in Israel and beyond: the breaking of the Guinness re-
violent conflict with its Arab neighbors, yet Jews and Arabs share cord at the Palestinian-Israeli village of Abu Gosh. In my analysis
a culinary passion: hummus. This humble dip of mashed chick- of this event I highlight two aspects of the “Hummus Wars” that
peas seasoned with tahini and lemon juice is ubiquitous in Middle are of specific interest to food scholars. First, I argue that food
Eastern public and private culinary spheres and is extremely pop- metaphors acquire a life of their own and may express unexpected
ular among Arabs and Israeli Jews and, as of recently, among West- meanings. Second, I point to the unexpected role of mediator
ern consumers lured by the health qualities of the “Mediterranean undertaken by Palestinians of Israeli citizenship in this event. I suggest
diet” and by the exotic nature of the dish itself. In 2008, hummus that a process of what I term “gastromediation” was taking place in Abu
became the subject of a heated debate between Israel and Leba- Gosh, in which the smooth oily paste was intended to serve as a
non that revolved around cultural copyrights, culinary heritage, material and social lubricant for the Israeli-Arab-Jewish-Palestinian
and economic revenues. In this article I return to the so-called conflict.
Hummus Wars, a series of culinary undertakings performed in
Lebanon and Israel in an attempt to claim ownership over hum-
mus by setting a Guinness World Record for the largest hummus Keywords: gastromediation, food, metaphors, hummus, Israel,
dish. I focus on one of these events, which attracted substantial Palestine

IN 2012 , A R I A R I E L P U B L I S H E D an article in Gastronomica advertising experts. The food industry, they maintain, was instru-
titled “The Hummus Wars,” in which he described a sequence mental in this process of gastronationalism (DeSoucey 2010),
of culinary events that took place in Lebanon and Israel a few which Hirsch and Tene (2013: 29) define as “the use of food
years earlier: the setting and resetting of Guinness World production, distribution and consumption to demarcate and
Records for the largest-ever hummus plate.1 Reading mainly sustain the emotive power of national attachment, as well as the
through media reports, Ariel emphasized the relationship use of nationalist sentiments to produce and market food.”
between food, nationalism, and globalization and pointed out Hirsch and Tene (ibid.) address in their article some of
that “[a]s foods become increasingly global and foodways are the events that made up what Ariel termed “the Hummus
gradually homogenized, national groups affirm their distinc- Wars,” as well as the Guinness record-breaking at the

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tiveness through assertions of food authenticity” (Ariel 2012: Israeli-Palestinian village of Abu Gosh, which is the main
34). He further argued that the meaning of food should not be event I discuss in this article. In fact, the three of us met
sought in heritage and tradition, but rather in practice and while conducting fieldwork in Abu Gosh, and their descrip-
performance. For him, the fact that Israeli Jews prepare and tion of the event is very similar (though not identical) to my 19
G A STR ON OM ICA
consume hummus made it as Israeli as it was Lebanese or own records. In this article I “revisit” the Hummus Wars by
Middle Eastern. highlighting aspects of these events that are of specific inter-
Hirsch and Tene (2013: 25), in their sociohistorical analysis est to food scholars: First, I show that food metaphors acquire
of the making of hummus into what they term “an Israeli cu- a life of their own and may express unexpected symbolic
linary cult,” further develop the idea that food industrializa- meanings. Second, I point to the role of mediator undertaken
tion and globalization are mechanisms that create national by Palestinians of Israeli citizenship at this event. I suggest
foods. They argue that hummus became popular in Israel as that a process of “gastromediation” took place in Abu Gosh,
a consequence of its industrialization, and show how the eth- in which the smooth oily paste was intended to serve as a
nic and national meanings attributed to hummus in Israel material and social lubricant for the Israeli-Arab-Jewish-
were created, manipulated, and updated by industrialists and Palestinian conflict.

GASTRONOMICA : THE JOURNAL OF CRITICAL FOOD STUDIES , VOL . 16, NUMBER 3, PP. 19–30, ISSN 1529-3262, ELECTRONIC ISSN 1533-8622. © 2016 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED . PLEASE DIRECT ALL REQUESTS FOR
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 Ariel and Hirsch and Tene touched upon these aspects of
the “Hummus Wars,” but developed their arguments in other
directions. Hirsch and Tene emphasized the role of industri-
alization in the creation of national icons, while Ariel dis-
cussed global and local politics. In this article, however, I
focus on the food itself. I argue that inherent qualities of food
such as dynamism, flexibility, and lack of orthodox canons, as
well as the specific culinary qualities of hummus, single it out
as an adequate means for the expression of complex and even
contradicting ideas and for facilitating “gastromediation.”
Anthropologists have been paying increasing attention to
“local food” (Ashkenazi and Jacob 2000; Counihan 2004;
Avieli 2005a; Wilk 2006; Klumbyte 2010) and to the cultural
:
processes that define food as local (Watson 1997; Caldwell
2004; Avieli 2005b), showing time and again how the idea of
“our food” is constructed through constant processes of negoti-
ation and adaptation. The Hummus Wars, however, were
unique in that the debate was not about accurate preparation,
authentic recipes, embeddedness, local ecology, or terroir, nor
about taste or quality. Rather, it dealt with questions of cultural
and economic ownership and with struggles for power, trans-
lated into the quantifiable question: “Whose hummus is
bigger?” The uniqueness of the Hummus Wars is further mag-
nified by the fact that this mundane dish with deep roots in the
Middle East is claimed by the citizens of modern, relatively
young postcolonial nation-states, involved in an active military
conflict.2 While most of the scholarship cited above highlights
distinction (Bourdieu 1984), national pride, and cultural purity,
the Hummus Wars are all about appropriating or reclaiming
the food of the other (or, more precisely, the enemy; cf. Hirsch
2011). Most intriguing, however, was the unexpected role of
mediator undertaken by Palestinians of Israeli citizenship, who
played a leading role at the record-breaking at Abu Gosh village,
and the ways in which they weaved and projected different
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messages to different audiences through their own claim over
hummus.
At this point I would like to emphasize the contribution of
20 ethnographic research to this article. Like Ariel and Hirsch
and Tene, I first learned about the ensuing Hummus Wars
G A STR ON OM ICA
from media reports. It could be argued that these events were
never more than media stunts, journalistic reports that
elicited some interest (no doubt promoted by professional
media advisors), but quickly lost their zest and faded out. The
ethnography, however, reveals that real people were person-
ally engaged and emotionally invested in claiming, prepar-
ing, and eating “real” hummus (“real” here meaning
corporeal people and material hummus), and that these
people had their own take on the events. I, too, address
media reports and images, but my goal is to emphasize lived
experiences and the ways in which these events were inter-
preted by the participants and by other commentators.
A word is due here regarding the use of national, religious,
and ethnic categories throughout the text. While national
terminology includes “Israelis,” “Lebanese,” and “Palesti-
nians,” relevant religious categories are “Jewish,” “Muslim,”
and “Christian.” However, Judaism is perceived at times as
religion and at others as nationality, while Israeli Jews often
identify Israeliness with Judaism, thus excluding non-Jewish
Israeli citizens. Further complicating the terminology is
the term “Arabs,” which is used globally to denote ethnicity
and/or nationality, and is often identified with Islam, thus
excluding non-Muslim Arab-speaking citizens of Middle
Eastern nation-states. Israeli Jews and official State of Israel
documents use at times the term “Arabs” for the Arab-
speaking non-Jewish citizens of Israel as well as Arab-speaking
non-Jewish Middle Easterners. They denote the Palestinians
under Israeli military occupation since 1967 as “Palestinians,”
while the Palestinians of Israeli citizenship are usually ter-
med “Arab-Israelis” (along with other “divide and rule” state-
imposed ethnic categories such as “Bedouins,” “Druze,” and
“Circassian” that redefine the latter as “not Palestinians”).
Throughout the text I use different terms to address members
of different national, ethnic, or religious groups (and their
combinations). When I quote my interlocutors, I maintain
their terminology, and I do my best to be precise with my own
categorizations, though this often turns out to be tricky.
Culinary Inclusion, Exclusion, and Mediation
It is an anthropological truism that food is a powerful marker
of identity (Fischler 1988; Moon 2008; Sutton 2001; Wilk
2006). Anthropologists have repeatedly shown how common
foodways and shared tastes form the foundations of group
membership (Holt and Amilien 2007; Wilk 1999), while food
taboos and stereotypes maintain social boundaries by defin-
ing the food of others as polluting and inedible (Bahloul
1995; Douglas 1975). Yet food is hardly a simplistic and static
symbol of collective identity. Cuisines evolve within specific
historical and social contexts (Goody 1985; Klumbyte 2010;
:
Mennell 1985; Mintz 1986; Watson 1997; Wilk 2006), making
dishes and foodways material representations of particular
historical narratives and singular social arrangements
(O’Connor 2008; Ries 2009) that weave and re-weave ideas
about the identities of those who cook and eat them.
An intriguing division exists in the literature between studies
that deal with the identity embedded in the exotic foods of
marginal peoples, with postsocialist foodways, and with Western
culinary arrangements. When it comes to the food eaten by
exotic others, anthropology’s traditional subjects, attention is
mainly paid to the ways in which specific dishes and eating
modes represent various facets of national or ethnic identity
(Abbots 2011; Ashkenazi and Jacob 2000; Cusack 2000; Cwiertka
2007; Howell 2003; Narayan 1997; Pilcher 1998). In the postso-
cialist context, the subject at hand is often the modernization of
production of specific food items (Klumbyte 2010; Mincyte
:
2008; Ries 2009). Yet, when studying Western foodways, atten-
tion is mainly paid to governmental and institutional debates
over brand rights of specific lucrative food items in specific
(mainly, EU) regions (Winter 2003; Hinrichs 2003; Leitch
2003; Castellanos and Bergstresser 2006; Cavanaugh 2007; Blue
2008; DeSoucey 2010; Weltz 2013).
The case of hummus in Israel complicates and challenges
these distinctions. Though clearly an Arab/Palestinian dish,
hummus is considered by many Israeli Jews as their national
food. And though presented as authentic local fare, much of
Middle Eastern hummus is produced nowadays in modern
factories and is exported by multinational distributors such as
Unilever and Nestlé, often as a sophisticated health food.3 As
such, hummus may be treated by Israeli Jews as an authentic
and exotic Palestinian local dish (Hirsch 2011) and by others
as an industrialized food item produced and reproduced in
socialist and postsocialist socioeconomic contexts (Hirsch and
Tene 2013); yet, in other contexts, hummus is treated as a
lucrative item whose branding and marketing are considered
economic assets. How a mundane dish became the source of
rich symbolism is one of the enigmas I wish to tackle in this
article.
Eating Hummus in Israel
Hummus is the Arabic term for chickpea beans as well as the
chickpea-based dip.4 Chickpeas have been cultivated and
consumed in the Middle East for thousands of years (Kiple
and Ornelas 2000), but the earliest documentation of a dip
similar to contemporary hummus dates to the thirteenth
century (Arieli 2012: 35). The dip is made of boiled chickpeas
that are pounded or ground and then mixed with lemon
juice and raw tahini (sesame paste). The dip is often seasoned
with garlic, salt, and pepper, but there are many variations
and additions, as well as many professional and personal
“secrets,” which add to the mystification of what is otherwise
a very simple dish. The dip may be served with a dash of olive
oil, a spoonful of tahini dip (the raw sesame paste mixed with
lemon and water), whole or crushed chickpeas, some paprika
or parsley that add taste and color, and so on. Msabaha is a
Palestinian breakfast dish of boiled hummus beans mixed
(not pounded or ground) with tahini dip and olive oil, served
with a spicy sauce made of pickled chilies and lemon.
Another variation includes foul (fava beans) paste and
hard-boiled eggs.
In Palestinian hummus joints in Israel (and in the rela-
tively few Jewish ones), the chickpea dip, in its various forms,
may be served in a bowl as a single-dish meal, accompanied
by pita bread and a small plate of olives, sliced onion, toma-
toes, and pickled cucumbers. The diners tear shreds of pita,
which they dip into the bowl to scoop some hummus and
bring it to their mouths. Such a hummus portion (usually
served with two pitas) makes for a hearty breakfast for a sin-
gle person but can satisfy two diners and is sometimes
shared. Containing high levels of vegetal protein, poly-
unsaturated fats, and fiber, and supplemented by carbo-
hydrates (pita), minerals, and vitamins (fresh and pickled
vegetables), hummus is wholesome, nourishing, cheap, and
highly satisfying.
Hummus can be prepared at home, but in contemporary
Israel, just like in many of its Middle Eastern neighbors, it is
often made in specialized shops, termed in modern Hebrew
hummusiot. Relatively cheap, highly nourishing, and com-
monly sold in urban settings, hummus is often associated by
Israeli Jews with the Palestinian urban working class (Gvion
2012). Hummus, however, is popular across ethnicities, na-
tionalities, religions, and classes in Israel and beyond, a fact
that partly explains the emotions invested in the Hummus
Wars.
Hummus is also consumed in more sophisticated settings.
In proper restaurants it is served on small saucers or plates,
along with other “salads” or dips such as tahini, labane (soft
goat cheese), baba ghanoush (grilled eggplant dip), mat-
bouha (cooked spicy tomato dip), taboule (bulgur salad),
olives, and pickles in the Mediterranean meze style, termed
in Hebrew salatim (salads). A small plate of hummus, along
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with other dips and salads, may also be served as an entrée for
a large, celebratory meal of roasted meats and cooked dishes.
The diners dip pita shreds or meat chunks into a common
saucer to scoop up the hummus. 21
Commensality and egalitarianism are therefore essential G A STR ON OM ICA
attributes of the hummus experience in both mundane and
sophisticated settings. In restaurants, a dish of hummus is
shared by several diners, who tuck (often bitten) pita shreds
or meat chunks and (at times) their fingers into the dip. In
these settings, individual body boundaries are transgressed as
a food that was directly touched by one diner is consumed by
other guests. When it comes to hummusiot, many have regu-
lar patrons who know each other and a sense of intimacy pre-
vails when they greet each other or share tables. When a
hummusia is busy, both regular and occasional diners may
 have to share tables with absolute strangers. In very popular
places on extremely busy days, such as Abu Shukri’s in Jaffa
on Friday at noon, customers not only share tables with
strangers but may also have to share the sidewalk edge in
front of the shop, rubbing shoulders with other patrons. The
fact that everyone eats the same dish over shared tables (or
sidewalk edges) further contributes to this sense of egalitarian
commensality, which I have observed, for instance, in the
conversations among strangers who share a table (and practi-
cally or symbolically, a dish). These conversations are part of
the etiquette of hummus food events, and evolve even among
those who would rarely communicate otherwise, the best ex-
ample being Israeli Jews and Palestinians.
Although Ariel (2012: 40) argues that “during the first half
of the twentieth century, hummus entered the diet of Jewish
immigrants in Palestine,” Hirsch and Tene (2013: 30) point
out that “prior to the foundation of the state of Israel in
1948, hummus was not popular among Jews.” Hirsch (2011:
601) quotes Yehuda Litani, who recounted how members of
the Palmach pre-state military units would frequent Arab res-
taurants during the 1940s and consume Palestinian fare
such as hummus as an act of heroism and as part of their
practical and symbolic attempts at settling in the region.
Hirsch and Tene (2013) assert, however, that hummus
became popular in Israel only in the context of the emer-
gence of the Mizrahi (lit. “oriental”) restaurant: cheap food
establishments operated by Jewish immigrants from Middle
Eastern countries, who served Middle Eastern foods,
including hummus. Jewish-Israeli entrepreneurs industrial-
ized and modernized hummus production, first as a con-
served product and later as a refrigerated fresh “salad”
(ibid.). In recent years, Jewish-Israeli manufacturers are
globalizing hummus, setting up factories in Europe and
North America. A main marketing strategy in the Israeli
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market is the recent diversification and “gourmetization” of
hummus (ibid.) by both large factories and “boutique” pro-
ducers. Another recent trend is the production of organic
22 hummus (Grosglik 2011).
Hummus is extremely popular among Israeli Jews. Culinary
G A STR ON OM ICA
establishments serving hummus in its many forms are the most
common fast-food venues and cheap eateries in the country,
while surveys repeatedly show that hummus is the single most
popular food item in Israeli domestic refrigerators. Israeli Jews
consider hummus an established and important part of their
diet and culinary culture. It is also important to bear in mind
that, although some Israeli-Palestinian and Jewish-gourmand
hummus shops serve a homemade product, most Jewish restau-
rants and many Palestinian ones serve industrial hummus. In
this sense, hummus is similar to many other “local foods” that
bear an image of authenticity even when they have long been
industrialized and mass produced.
The Hummus Wars
On March 14, 2006, New York–based Sabra Foods, partly
owned by Strauss-Elite, Israel’s leading food producer, set a
Guinness World Record for the largest plate of hummus ever,
3.5 meters in diameter and 400 kg (800 lbs.) in weight.
Sabra’s American CEO Yehudah Pearl explained that this
publicity stunt was aimed at expanding Sabra’s market share
and hummus’s popularity in America.5 Pearl promised that if
competitors tried to break the record, Sabra would fight back:
“We invite anybody to compete, but then we will make some-
thing even bigger.”6
The brand name Sabra (Hebrew: Tzabar) evokes notions
of national and ethnic identity. Tzabar or prickly pear (collo-
quially, sabres) is used in modern Hebrew to denote “a Jew
born in Israel,” that is, a native Israeli Jew. Israeli Jews often
describe themselves as prickly on the outside but sweet
within (see also Almog 2000: 4), tough at first but sensitive
and kind once you get to know them. Paradoxically, the cac-
tus is a recent arrival from the New World, a die-hard,
drought-resistant plant used by Palestinian farmers under
Ottoman rule to delineate their fields. As a consequence,
sabres grow nowadays mainly on the ruins of Palestinian
villages (Ben Ze’ev 2011). This culinary symbol is therefore
multivocal and evokes both an endorsing self-perception of
Israeli Jews and the memory of the displaced Palestinians and
their 1948 ruin. In this sense, the brand name Sabra evokes
the ambiguity embedded in the “Israelization” of hummus:
both prickly pears and hummus are conceived by Israeli Jews
as symbols of their own localness, but since both are actually
pre-Zionist and Palestinian, they expose a continued Palesti-
nian presence.
Returning to the evolving Hummus Wars, the 2006 Guin-
ness record for the largest hummus plate did not go unno-
ticed. In October 2008, Fadi Abboud, the president of the
Association of Lebanese Industrialists and later the country’s
minister of tourism, announced that Lebanon would petition
the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade to request pro-
tected status for hummus from the EU: “[b]y marketing
Lebanese national dishes such as hummus and tabbouleh as
its own . . . Israel was costing Lebanon tens of millions of dol-
lars per year.”7 Abboud explained that Lebanon’s case would
rely on the “feta cheese precedent, whereby a European court
granted Greece the sole right to use the term feta as the name
of the cheese it produced.”8 Abboud and the Lebanese govern-
ment never requested such protected status for hummus, but
the issue was important both economically and symbolically,
deeply enmeshed in perceptions of Lebanese national identity
and pride. The Lebanese therefore decided to respond to the
challenge made by an Israeli company by setting their own
Guinness record with a dish containing no less than 2,000 kg
of hummus in October 2009 (Ariel 2012). Israeli chefs swiftly
responded to this new record. In November 2009, just a month
after the Lebanese set the Guinness record, 80 kg of meat, 12 kg
of salad, and 10 kg of flour were cooked and stuffed into a gi-
ant pita, 3 meters in diameter, setting the record for the
world’s largest Meorav Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Mix): a dish of
chicken meat and internal organs grilled with onions and
seasoned with turmeric, garlic, and cumin, served in a pita
with salad and tahini. This dish, reputedly invented during
the 1970s in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda municipal market,
is a classic market “leftovers dish” and an iconic modern
Jerusalem “local specialty.”
The Mahane Yehuda market, where the record was set, is
a well-known hub of vociferous Israeli right-wing nationalism
and anti-Arab sentiments. The media often depicts traders
and customers as supporters of right and extreme-right politi-
cal parties and as verbally and physically violent, especially
when it comes to Jewish-Arab relations. While this may not
be the case for many of those selling and buying in this mar-
ket, the media depiction of Mahane Yehuda is so defined that
it became a testing ground for politicians and especially for
would-be prime ministers, who perceived their short visit
to the market, usually surrounded by dozens of bodyguards
and policemen, as a litmus test of their popularity among
the “real population” (am’ha). This market was therefore an
obvious location for a reaction to the Lebanese challenge.
Though Jerusalem Mix is not hummus, Israeli media
reports made it clear that this was yet another maneuver in
the ensuing Hummus Wars. Channel 2 News, Israel’s leading
news broadcaster, began its report of the event by stating:
“While the Lebanese ‘stole’ our Guinness record for the
world’s largest hummus plate, Israel decided to fight back
(lehashiv milhama) with a feat that the Northern neighbors
can hardly duplicate: the world’s largest Jerusalem Mix.”9
The headline on the popular Walla news website was even
blunter: “Another Victory for Israel: Record in Jerusalem
Mix.”10 The futility of the ploy, however, was noticed by an
Al Arabia (a Palestinian news website) reporter who wrote:
“They should have no trouble getting their concoction of
200 kilograms (440 pounds) of mostly chicken innards rec-
ognized by the Guinness Book of Records—no one has ever
attempted it before.”11
As such, the Guinness record for the largest Jerusalem
Mix could hardly count as an Israeli victory in the ensuing
Hummus Wars. In a surprising twist, Jawadat Ibrahim, a
Palestinian of Israeli citizenship from the village of Abu Gosh
and the owner of the popular Hummus Abu Gosh restaurant,
announced that by doubling the Lebanese record and prepar-
ing a plate containing no less than 4,000 kg of hummus,
he could “restore the state’s honor” (see also Hirsch and
Tene 2013: 39).12
The village of Abu Gosh is an interesting place. Located
some fifteen kilometers to the west of Jerusalem on Highway
1, which links the capital to the densely populated central
coast, it boasts dozens of restaurants specializing in hummus
and other Palestinian/Arab/Middle Eastern foods such as
falafel, tahini, and tabbouleh. These food venues cater
mostly to Israeli-Jewish clientele, making Abu Gosh one of
the Palestinian villages most frequented by Israeli Jews and,
as a consequence, among the most prosperous. Although
many Israeli-Palestinian villages feature similar restaurants,
Abu Gosh is exceptionally popular among Israeli Jews be-
cause its dwellers are considered “good Arabs.”13 The first
reason for this is historical: in 1948, the village head (mukh-
tar) cut a deal with the Hagana (the pre-state Jewish Defense
organization) leaders to keep his village neutral in the conflict
in return for Jewish protection. Abu Gosh villagers remained
neutral and even assisted the Jews, but, unbeknownst to
most of the public, many villagers were deported along with
dwellers of neighboring Palestinians villages. They were only
allowed to return because of a civil campaign headed by prom-
inent Jewish figures. In her ethnography of Abu Gosh,
Rebecca Stein (2003) quotes several villagers who recount
bitter memories of their relations with the Jews and stress
the fact that despite their collaboration with the Jews during
1948, most of the village lands were confiscated. Her inform-
ants made a point, however, of concealing these negative
sentiments from their Jewish customers, so as to ensure the
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long-standing image of the village as welcoming and safe for
Jewish customers.
The second reason for Abu Gosh’s popularity among Israeli
Jews is the widespread belief that Abu Gosh is a Christian vil- 23
lage, and as such, safe, or at least safer, for Jews than Muslim G A STR ON OM ICA
Arab villages. Abu Gosh’s Christian image is constructed
around its Notre Dame Church, large Benedictine monastery,
and popular annual Abu Gosh Festival of Liturgical Music,
which attracts thousands of upper-middle-class Israeli Jews.
The Central Bureau of Statistics indicates, however, that
99.9% of the village residents are Muslim.14 Abu Gosh’s pop-
ularity as a hummus hub is thus based on a set of incorrect
assumptions made by Israeli Jews about the religion of the
village dwellers and their relations with the Israeli state and its
Jewish citizens.
 Jawadat Ibrahim, the Israeli Palestinian who decided to
challenge the Lebanese record and “restore the state’s
honor,” is interesting, too. According to media reports, he left
Israel as a young man, possibly because of financial debts, to
join his brother in the United States, but, after winning
millions in the Illinois Lottery, he returned to Israel to estab-
lish his restaurant and became a successful businessman.15
Ibrahim is one of those Abu Gosh Palestinian Muslims that
Israeli Jews incorrectly believe to be Christian, pro-Zionist,
and “good.” Naturally, I found the whole event extremely
captivating and headed, along with my colleague, sociologist
Rafi Grosglik, to Abu Gosh on January 8, 2010, to witness the
attempt at setting a new Guinness record for the largest plate
of hummus.
While the media rhetoric in the Israeli-Hebrew broadcast-
ing was “statist” (mamlachti) and even nationalistic, using
terms such as “us,” “the Lebanese,” and “our national dish,”
the atmosphere in Abu Gosh had a local, not national, flair.
The village was decorated with its own municipal flags rather
than Israeli flags, and localness was the main theme in the
day’s speeches, a point to which I return shortly.16
We reached Abu Gosh early, just prior to the arrival of a
large truck labeled Salatey Miki (Micki’s Salads—Ibrahim’s
Jewish business partners). Boxes of prefabricated commercial F I GU R E 1: Food Metaphors and Gastromediation
ILLUSTRATIONS BY HEIMO WALLNER © 2016
hummus were unloaded from the truck and their contents
were poured into a huge satellite dish, borrowed from the
neighboring satellite farm of Neve Ilan. The satellite dish was Dozens of men clad in chefs’ apparel moved busily among
placed on a weight located on a high ramp above Ibrahim’s the crowds during the event. One of them told me that they
restaurant’s parking lot. Standing next to the workers, we were not chefs but waiters from the local restaurants, invited by
could not help but notice the acrid odor of the hummus, the organizers to walk around wearing cooks’ outfits. He admit-
which smelled spoiled. ted what we had already guessed: that they didn’t prepare the
As the day progressed and the temperatures rose, the hum- hummus. We even identified some of them as being the same
mus in the satellite dish was exposed to the blazing sun and men who took part in the construction of the stage earlier on.
increasing heat. Coincidentally, January 8, 2010, was the An important and unusual feature of the event was the fact
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warmest day ever recorded in an Israeli winter, with temper-
atures soaring to 30° Celsius. Because January is usually cold
and cloudy, the organizers did not devise a plan to deal with
24 the heat, with either shade or refrigeration. Judging from the
initial smell, it was clear to us that the hummus was rotting
G A STR ON OM ICA
that it was trilingual. Although Hebrew, Arabic, and English
are the official languages of the State of Israel, Arabic is often
overlooked in events that are not explicitly Arab-oriented. But
here, the hosts made a point of using the three languages. The
event was led by Zuhair Bahloul, an Israeli-Palestinian sports

under the hot sun. In fact, although spectators were promised
free samples once the record had been set, the hummus
was not apportioned and no explanations were provided.
Although no one admitted to me that the hummus was not
fresh to begin with, and/or became spoiled due to exposure
to the elements, it is quite clear that this was the case. The
fact that, to my knowledge, none of the thousands of specta-
tors made a fuss about the unfulfilled promise of free food
suggests that I was not the only one aware of the hummus’s
state.
broadcaster (elected to the Israeli Parliament a few years after
the events described here), who is often ridiculed by Israeli
Jews because of his highbrow Hebrew and heavy Arab accent.
Bahloul, speaking in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, began by
declaring, “Abu Gosh is on the map.”17 He was followed by
Miriam Toukan, the first Palestinian to make it to the Israel
Idol finals (in 2007). She sang Israel’s Eurovision-winning song
“Halleluiah” in Arabic and Hebrew.
Jawadat Ibrahim’s trilingual speech further highlighted
the “Abu-Goshness” of the event. He repeatedly stressed that
the event was taking place in Abu Gosh and did not mention
the State of Israel, as he did in interviews in the national
Jewish-dominated media. He also pointed out that hummus
was a traditional local specialty (that is, that hummus was a
Palestinian or Arab dish, not an Israeli one). But his main
argument was that “the dwellers of Abu Gosh [that is,
Palestinians of Israeli citizenship] were the bridge for peace
in the Middle East.” He recounted how in several past events
Jewish, Arab, and other world leaders met at Abu Gosh and
negotiated peace over plates of hummus, and called for
further meetings and peace talks between political leaders in
Abu Gosh. In an interview conducted a couple of months
after the event, Ibrahim commented further, “We at Abu Gosh
know that we bridge all cultures. In my speech at the record-
breaking ceremony, I even said that I was willing to make the
next plate [that is, set a new record] together with a Lebanese
chef. Unfortunately, they said no, and we all know why.”18
Once the record was confirmed by the Guinness representa-
tive, Jack Brockbank, the song “Od Yavoh Shalom Aleynu
(Salam)” (Peace shall be bestowed upon us—Salam), which in-
cludes the Arabic word Salam (peace) and is thus bilingual to a
certain extent, was played while blue and white balloons were
released into the skies, to the sound of cheering and clapping
Jewish and Palestinian onlookers. The colors of the Israeli flag
had, until that moment, been absent from the event.
As the event concluded, we approached Brockbank to de-
termine whether he knew that the hummus was industrial.
He responded swiftly: “Of course I know, but it was the same
in Lebanon . . . no claims were made that the hummus was
homemade.” He thus confirmed our observations that the
claims for cultural authenticity were asserted while using
mass-produced, globalized merchandise, adding yet another
paradox to this incident.
Culinary Metaphors and “Gastromediation”
FALL 2016
Driving home, I couldn’t help but reflect on the irony of the
event: A Palestinian of Israeli citizenship sets out, in his own words
(in Hebrew), “to save the nation’s honor” by preparing the largest 25
plate ever of hummus, a dish of his own ethnic culinary heritage, G A STR ON OM ICA
which is also a contested marker of identity and a desired eco-
nomic asset claimed by the Lebanese, Palestinians, and Israeli
Jews. He did it in a village whose Palestinian-Muslim identity is
purposely blurred for political and commercial reasons, and
achieved his feat with industrial hummus produced by his Jewish
business partners, so as to beat Lebanese contesters, whose culi-
nary heritage is similar if not identical to his own and who also
used industrial hummus for their feat.
Most disturbing, however, was the metaphor itself: Ibrahim
suggested that peace in the Middle East was best negotiated over
 a dish of hummus in the liminal setting of a Palestinian-
Israeli village, and urged for further dialogue within the same
location and over the same dish. The hummus he used,
however, was smelly and rotten, thus reflecting accurately,
although unintentionally, the state of peace in the region:
foul, putrid, and unappetizing.
Webster’s dictionary defines metaphor as “a figure of
speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one
kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest
a likeness or analogy between them.” Etymologically, it is
composed of the ancient Greek terms meta, “after” or
“across,” and fero, “bear” or “carry,” literally to “carry over”
or “transfer.” Lakoff and Johnson (2008: 5) thus assert that
“the essence of metaphor is understanding and experienc-
ing one kind of thing in terms of another.”
The culinary sphere is among the richest sources of meta-
phors for social relations and social structures (Bloemraad 2011
and, for example, “the melting pot,” “comparing apples and
oranges,” or “two peas in a pod”). Foodstuffs and foodways,
however, are not only a source of metaphors, but also their
target (Korthals 2008): We use food metaphors to describe social
and personal qualities (“he is so bitter”), but also when we wish
to describe food and taste (“he is as sweet as honey”). Ibrahim’s
suggestion that sharing hummus is (or should be) a model for
peace talks in the Middle East exposes yet another dimension of
food metaphors; just like food, these metaphors have a life of
their own.
Ibrahim wanted to emphasize the positive social dimen-
sions of eating and how they could contribute to more
fruitful Middle Eastern peace talks: food sharing and com-
mensality make for comradeship and good spirit, which in
turn may encourage positive and fruitful dialogue based on
similarities, shared goals, and the common good rather than
difference, competition, and animosity. While talking about
F AL L 2 0 1 6
hummus, Ibrahim was actually insinuating the following
questions: Instead of traveling to remote foreign lands (Ma-
drid, Camp David, Oslo), wouldn’t it be more fruitful to
26 meet right here, at Abu Gosh, with its familiar and pleasant
Middle Eastern scenery and weather? Wouldn’t sharing a
G A STR ON OM ICA
dish that all parties love work better than each side fortifying
at the opposing ends of the negotiating table? Wouldn’t it
make more sense to emphasize shared experiences and inter-
ests and highlight similarity rather than difference and dis-
tance?
Ibrahim further suggested that hummus sharing was not
only a metaphor for Middle Eastern peace talks, but also that
hummus was a metaphor for Palestinians of Israeli citizenship
themselves: a modern product that emerged within a specific
historic and socioeconomic context, and although plunged in
conflict, is in fact a unifying element, a bridge between Israeli
Jews, Palestinians, and the Arab world at large.
Hummus, however, turned out to be a more complex and
accurate metaphor than Ibrahim or anyone else could have
imagined. Volatile and sensitive, continuously transformed by
historic, cultural, and economic processes, susceptible to the el-
ements and, perhaps accidentally,19 the process of putrefaction,
the hummus used to set the record at Abu Gosh expressed ideas
that were contrary to Ibrahim’s proclaimed intentions, but alto-
gether much more realistic and accurate than his vision of the
event—of Middle Eastern peace talks and of the ways in which
Palestinians of Israeli citizenship are perceived in the region.
Like all food metaphors, it acquired a life of its own, denoting
new ideas and suggesting alternative meanings for the event.
While the metaphoric multivocality of hummus was a
salient aspect of the event at Abu Gosh, another unique
feature was the process of “gastromediation” initiated by
Ibrahim. In her 2006 article “Confectionary and Conflict
Resolution,” Jennifer Schulz highlights the role of mediator
undertaken by Vianne Rocher, the chocolatier protagonist in
the film Chocolat (dir. Lasse Hallström, USA, 2000). Rocher
applies her cooking skills so as to ease tensions, undermine
social boundaries, and resolve conflicts among members of
different social categories in a French village where she
decides to set up a pâtisserie. Schulz points out that “[t]he
metaphor that best characterizes Rocher is that of ‘the mediator
as cook’” (ibid., 270), and shows how the conflict at the center
of each scene is resolved by cooking and eating. She suggests
that “[t]he metaphor of the mediator as cook, as opposed to, for
example, the lawyer as warrior, alludes to warmth and kindness.
Battle-based legal metaphors entrench adversarialness and en-
mity and are very gendered. They leave little room for those
whose approach to conflict resolution diverges from ‘crushing
one’s opponent’” (ibid.). Cooking, Schulz argues, makes for an
excellent metaphor for conflict mediation and resolution be-
cause it is “not adversarial, and brings to mind nourishment,
community, and satisfaction” (ibid.).
Like many other scholars who write on food but are inter-
ested in other issues, Schulz focuses on mediation but ignores
the main mediating agent in the film: chocolate itself. The
sweet, comforting matter is one of the most plastic foodstuffs.
With minimal heating, chocolate can be reworked and manip-
ulated, shaped and reshaped. Favored by kids and adults, choc-
olate is also a romantic and sexy gift, given by men to women in
an attempt to win their hearts and/or bodies. The warm, melt-
ing, oily stuff is a metaphor for love and for sexual relations. The
film is all about gender relations, and about romance and pas-
sion, and chocolate is the best expression of such sentiments.
The protagonist could have been a chef or a pâtissier, but the
filmmakers made the heroine a chocolatier, precisely because
chocolate is such a great means of mediation.
The Guinness record-setting at Abu Gosh was an attempt by
Jawadat Ibrahim, a Palestinian of Israeli citizenship, to position
himself as a conflict mediator among Israeli-Jews, Palestinians,
Lebanese, and “the Arabs.” Though the Hummus Wars were in
many ways commercial maneuvers instigated by industrialists
and businessmen, the event at Abu Gosh involved face-to-face,
noncommercial interaction between Israeli Jews and Palesti-
nians that was based on hospitality and emphasized common
preferences and goals rather than claims for one-sided owner-
ship or, in Schulz’s words, attempts at “crushing the enemy.”
Just like in Chocolat, the Israeli power structure was
challenged at Abu Gosh by a cook. While the film deals
with patriarchy and feminism and its protagonist is a female
cook, the event at Abu Gosh was all about national identity.
The Israeli power structure was accordingly challenged by a
member of a minority group, the lowest in the Israeli na-
tional hierarchy. The overwhelming Jewish supremacy that
structures all Jewish-Palestinian relations in Israel was
substituted in Abu Gosh by a reciprocal, balanced, host-
guest relationship: the Palestinians were the generous hosts
and the owners of cultural and economic capital, while the
Jews were the well-behaved guests appreciative of their
hosts’ generosity. And unlike any other war fought in mod-
ern Israel, the Palestinians were now fighting to “restore the
nation’s honor” in a feat that Jews alone could not have ac-
complished. In this sense, Ibrahim’s claim that Jewish-Arab
tensions ease over a plate of hummus was reaffirmed.
Most intriguing, however, was the role of mediator attrib-
uted by Ibrahim to Israeli Palestinians. Official and unofficial
Israeli-Jewish takes on Palestinians of Israeli citizenship
stretch from a conceptualization of them as primitive sec-
ond-class citizens whose presence is reluctantly tolerated but
loyalty and rights always questioned, to a characterization of
them as members of the enemy camp and a potential fifth
column. As such, they are not conscripted into the military
and are prevented from holding “sensitive” positions, even when
they are parliament members. When it comes to public opinion,
many Israeli Jews feel that Palestinians of Israeli citizenship
should be deported or, at the very least, stripped of their civil
rights. In a recent survey, 74% of Israeli Jews felt that only Jews
should have a say in issues of “peace and security” and 57%
opposed the idea of “adding Arab parties to the coalition.”20
Prime Minister Netanyahu eked out a victory in the 2015 elec-
tions by sending a Facebook message on election day claiming
that “Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls,” as if
voting was not their civil right, while politicians such as
former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman have openly
called for affixing their civil rights to their “loyalty.”21
Palestinians of Israeli citizenship are also treated with
ambivalence in the Arab world, and are envied, disliked, and
distrusted by the Palestinians in the occupied territories and
diaspora. In his article on the complicated status of the Pales-
tinians Dan Rabinowitz writes:
the Palestinian citizens of Israel were treated by the exiled Palestinian
leadership as a self-seeking, spoilt collective, collaborating with the
Zionist occupation of the homeland. Paradoxically, the very contingent
of Palestinians that managed to remain in situ in the homeland found
itself physically disconnected and morally excommunicated from the
center of gravity of national crystallization. (2001: 74)
Eschewed and distrusted by Israeli Jews and by the rest of the
Palestinians and the Arab world, Rabinowitz coined the term
“trapped minority” to describe their impossible sociopolitical
situation.
Jawadat Ibrahim rejected both the dismissive Israeli-Jewish
attitude and that of the Palestinians, and suggested a new mean-
ing for the liminal position of Israeli Palestinians. Instead of
accepting the marginal neither/nor status they were ascribed by
the warring parties, he suggested that Israeli Palestinians were
both Israelis and Palestinians and hence the only ones able to
bridge the gap and negotiate peace. He also suggested that
when the two sides meet on the bridge, they should discuss their
relations and negotiate the terms for conflict resolution over a
plate of hummus. By doing so, he defined hummus as a medi-
ating substance that bridges the gaps between Jews and Arabs.
Here, the political and the culinary converge: hummus was
constructed at the Guinness World Record event in Abu Gosh
not only as a vessel of Israeli Jewish, Palestinian, or Lebanese
identity, but also as a means to bridge the gap between the
quarreling sides. In other words, Ibrahim was gastromediating,
FALL 2016
and hummus, just like chocolate, was the means for gastrome-
diation.
If gastropolitics are indeed “the use of food production, dis-
tribution and consumption to demarcate and sustain the emo- 27
tive power of national attachment” (Hirsch and Tene 2013:
G A STR ON OM ICA
29), gastromediation is the application and channeling of the
positive emotional, cognitive, and physical feelings evoked by
food and eating so as to arbitrate conflicts, overcome differen-
ces, facilitate intervention, and sustain positive resolution. Gas-
tromediation is integral to cooking and eating and is an aspect of
most food events, from mundane home-eaten meals to grand of-
ficial banquets. It is an implicit bearing of gastropolitics (Desou-
cey 2010), but also its antidote. It is often masked by more
explicit and competitive facets of shared meals, such as distinc-
tion and hierarchy, but its positive affect balances the quest for
 power they entail and facilitates interaction and cooperation,
during and after the meal.
Epilogue
In May 2010, the Lebanese set yet a new Guinness World
Record, with over 10 tons of hummus.22 The Jerusalem Post
used a military tone in its report of the event, but now with
a joking twist: “Lebanon launched a decisive retaliation on
Saturday, in the campaign that the Army Radio described as
‘The Third Lebanon War’. No Katyushas or Scuds crossed
the northern border, but Lebanon served Israel a 10-ton blow
in the competition for regional supremacy. Lebanon struck
down Israel’s world record for the largest plate of hummus on
Saturday, in the village of Fanar, east of Beirut.”
Jawadat Ibrahim responded to the challenge, telling the
Jerusalem Post, “No matter what happens I’m going to double
it. I’m going to show who hummus belongs to.”23 Despite his
promise, the Hummus Wars seem to have run out of energy,
and as of the end of 2015, no new records had been
attempted. Filmmaker Oren Rosenfeld tried to arrange a
15-ton record attempt as a publicity stunt for his documen-
tary Hummus! but failed—according to Rosenfeld—because
the Guinness staff refused to come to Israel due to security
considerations.24
The Hummus Wars seem to be over, but the question re-
mains: “Why hummus?” What singled out this humble dish
as an appropriate means for expressing and negotiating com-
plicated ideas and even contrasting views and for mediating
peace in the Middle East? To look for an answer, we should
return to some of the basic qualities of food and of hummus.
For one, the elastic and dynamic nature of food makes it a
perfect vessel for complicated and polysemic ideas. Food, as
opposed to most other material artifacts, is a matter in con-
F AL L 2 0 1 6
stant, fast-paced change (Lévi-Strauss 1966; Clark 2004).
“Raw” is transformed into “cooked” and/or “rotten,” and the
cooked is eaten (digested and defecated) or discarded
28 (before/after rotting) within a few hours. Food is also less pre-
scribed and canonized than most other cultural elements, al-
G A STR ON OM ICA
ways featuring great personal, local, and regional variation.
“Season according to taste” is therefore the instruction that
follows even the most meticulous recipes, pointing out that
variation is practically endless. These qualities—flexibility,
constant change, and vast disparity—allow for exceptional
dynamism when it comes to symbolic meanings: It is the elas-
ticity of the means that allows for the elasticity of meanings.
Second, hummus itself has specific material and social
characteristics that enhance its ability to express and contain
contradictions. Mundane and cheap, made at home, in
specialized shops, and in industrial factories, there are hun-
dreds of recipes/variations and secrets for making it. Hirsch
(2011) argues that finding “the best hummus” is almost an ob-
session in Israel, a fact that was recognized and formalized in
a (commercially oriented) national poll for the best hummus
shop in the country. The fact that this dish has so many var-
iations allows for the expression of numerous ideas and its
pasty oiliness enhances its ability to lubricate friction and
ease tension.
Finally, just like chocolate, hummus is an elastic paste
that can be easily shaped and reshaped. Furthermore, it can
be eaten as a main course, as a side dish, or as a condiment,
from an individual plate or a shared dish, in mundane and
festive contexts. Hummus is a perfect mediating agent.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Emma-Jayne Abbots, Lissa Caldwell, Josh
Berlowitz and two anonymous reviewers for the valuable com-
ments and for helping me make sense of my ethnographic data.
NOTES
1. I explain my use of ethnic, national, and religious categories later
in the text.
2. Though Israel’s declared enemy is the Lebanese Shiite
organization Hezbollah, Israel’s latest wars were fought in Lebanon,
are termed the first and second “Lebanon Wars,” and affected the
lives of all Lebanese. Thus, despite Israel’s dismissal of the state of
Lebanon as a meaningful military power, the conflict and warfare
are hardly limited to Hezbollah.
3. www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/dining/16united.html?_r=0.
4. The biblical term himtza is the proper word for chickpea beans
in Hebrew, but it is rarely used in Modern Hebrew, as hummus is
routinely used for both beans and dish.
5. www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/6840/Default.aspx
(accessed December 8, 2015).
6. www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/RTV/2006/03/09/RTV372006/?
v=0sampled (accessed December 8, 2015).
7. Tabbouleh is a Middle Eastern salad made of bulgur, tomatoes,
parsley, onion, olive oil, and lemon juice.
8. http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/01/15/food-fight-4/ (accessed March
16, 2016).
9. www.mako.co.il/news-israel/local/Article-bbeb277c6e54521004.
htm (accessed May 17 2016).
10. http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//1616594 (accessed May 17 2016).
11. www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/11/30/92799.html (accessed
May 17 2016).
12. www.103.fm/programs/Media.aspx?ZrqvnVq=ELLMGD
&c41t4nzVQ=EG (accessed May 17 2016).
13. The term “good Arab” is routinely used in Israeli-Jewish
discourse to describe (mainly) Palestinians who behave in ways that
please Israeli Jews. Thus, for example, journalist Gideon Levi wrote
in a recent commentary on the former radio broadcaster and present
Knesset (Israeli parliament) member Zouheir Bahloul, whose role in
the Hummus Wars is discussed shortly: “He wasn’t always like that.
All his life he tried to be a good Arab. . . . He was still proud of
himself for realizing the dream of an Arab boy from Nazareth who
wanted to meet Benjamin Netanyahu. . . . Only two months ago, he
participated in a Hebrew language conference in Rishon Letzion”
(www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.713607 [accessed March 14,
2016]).
14. www.cbs.gov.il/publications11/local_authorities09/pdf/
348_0472.pdf (accessed May 17 2016).
15. http://israelity.com/tag/jawdat-ibrahim and www.ynet.co.il/
articles/1,7340,L-3202839,00.html (both accessed January 29, 2016).
16. The speeches can be observed at www.mako.co.il/news-israel/
local/Article-a960951ce5a0621004.htm (accessed January 29, 2016).
17. He was referring to a famous statement made by Israeli-
American basketball player Tal Brody: “We are on the map, and we
shall remain on the map,” made immediately after the historic
victory over CSK Moskva in 1977, an event that was perceived in
Israel as an almost biblical victory over the anti-Semitic and
anti-Israeli communist regime.
18. http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=1022262 (my
translation) (accessed May 17 2016).
19. Despite the promise to dish out the hummus once the record
was set, both hummus and explanations were not provided and the
subject was not mentioned by anyone present or by later
commentators. Using almost expired hummus for such an event
makes sense economically: instead of throwing it out, it could be
used for a publicity stunt. I find it hard (but not impossible) to
believe that an informed decision was made to use putrefied
hummus to begin with. Unexpected weather conditions were
probably decisive in its spoiling. Yet using rotten hummus would
have been a classic Middle Eastern peace talks maneuver, reflecting
perhaps the two most common attitudes among peace talk
participants: making a promise but never intending to keep it, and
assuming that the talks will fail in any case so there is no point in
earnestly trying. I keep these remarks in a footnote as I have no way
of substantiating them.
20. www.themarker.com/opinion/1.2787357 (accessed April 23,
2016).
21. www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/03/17/on-
israeli-election-day-netanyahu-warns-of-arabs-voting-in-droves/
(accessed April 23, 2016).
22. www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-serving-of-
hummus (accessed December 8, 2015).
23. www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Lebanon-breaks-Israels-humous-
world-record (accessed December 8, 2015).
24. www.haaretz.co.il/food/.premium-1.2793202 (accessed
December 8, 2015).
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