My paternal grandfather, growing up in 1920s Brooklyn, had 11 brothers. Setting aside issues of bedroom management, meal logistics, domestic scuffles, etc., the sheer fact of having an entire basketball team’s worth of siblings, all of them of the same gender, sounds completely overwhelming. Not so for the 10 brothers behind this Israeli onion-flavored snack, who appear to have put their combined energies to good use, producing small ribbons of fried, cracker-y matter that taste a bit like burnt Funyons. This is much more pleasant than it sounds; these things are potent but not greasy (shades of the center region of a nice bialy) and don’t need a coating of flavor dust to convey a strong, toothsome taste. The bag, on the other hand, is a complete conundrum. Written mostly in Hebrew, with some hovering onions and a ticking clock (to indicate the bag’s ‘fast food’ properties?), the whole thing seems a tad mysterious. Is the name a reference to Joseph’s 10 brothers, who threw him in a pit out of jealousy over his many-colored coat, or are there actually ten strapping young lads behind this product? The internet provides no clues; this may be the first foreign snack I’ve consumed about which I can find absolutely zero information whatsoever. Procured from Holyland Market in the East Village, which is notable for its total focus on Israeli products and high variety and volume. Also purchased on this trip: some jarred amba (a useful sandwich condiment), a bag of fluffy fresh pitas, delicious baked bureks and a box of whole wheat matzos. A future post will cover my attempts to perfect, and expand upon, the ancient institution that is matzo brei.
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On a recent trip to Target’s Atlantic Center location, I wandered into the dollar deals section, the best place to find such delicacies as slightly battered Charleston Chews and Whales crackers, a snack that far outshines its more-famous Goldfish competitors. On this occasion another option presented itself, with the unexpected appearance of this imported Israeli snack, in a bag illustrated with two vaguely sinister, presumably pizza loving youths. Despite the label, these Bissli bites have no real hint of pizza flavor - closer to a thin, wheaty crouton with a vegetal aftertaste - likely owing to the classic cheapo ingredient trinity of corn starch, MSG and dehydrated onion and garlic, various configurations of which assure that nothing ‘Pizza-Flavored’ ever tastes anything like pizza. Of course Bissli isn’t just in the pizza business, they also deal in taco, falafel, ‘grill’ and other varieties, which pleasantly enough all come in different shapes, a choice which at least conceivably suggests that each configuration was chosen to perfectly match its corresponding flavor profile. The vague taste of these gently palatable, grid-shaped wheat snacks also brought me to another, bigger question. What is the inspiration here? To wit, what is pizza like in Israel?
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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