It is an interesting fact that the people who lived in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago probably dined better than those - who lived there just half a century ago, when the State of Israel was I founded. In ancient Jerusalem, excellent markets were filled with fresh vegetables, fruits, poultry, lamb and fish; the narrow streets of the city were lined with numerous stalls where vendors sold fried fish, pickled cucumbers and freshly grilled meats and the roads from Jerusalem to Jericho and Hebron were peppered with stands where grilled lamb, pickled watermelon rind and cakes made from chickpeas were readily available. Whether for at-home dining or while traveling, hungry men and women had no problem in finding good things to eat.

Alas, the founders of the modem state had no such good fortune, and even though fresh fruits and vegetables of high quality remained readily available, the quality of many of the other culinary basics of the Mediterranean way of life had either vanished or deteriorated in the intervening millennia. Visitors to Israel in the 1950s rarely returned to their homes abroad to boast about the fine meals they had eaten in modern-day Israel.

Restaurants, mostly serving the foods of North Africa and the Mediterranean, were available, but dining out was rarely a positive experience. Worse, large companies dominated the comestibles market, producing products that lacked excitement or originality. In 1948, for example, there were only two cheeses available, one referred to rather vaguely as white cheese and the other as yellow cheese, both of which had neither charm nor appeal.

Thankfully for those who enjoy fine food, the intervening half century has seen four separate but related culinary revolutions within the country. Interestingly, it was not until the mid- 1970s that any of these revolutions started. But today, twenty years later, one can enjoy a wide variety of fine foods in Israel.

The Goats' Cheese Revolution

In mountainous and stony areas, and wherever pasture is poor and the land is dry, goats are easy to raise, and their milk and cheese are highly valued. All around the Mediterranean, in Greece, the southern Balkans, parts of Italy, Spain and much of France, such cheeses are made in abundance; many have attained international acclaim for their fine rich flavor. In North Africa and the Middle East, such cheeses are especially popular among Bedouins, nearly all of whom keep goats, and farmers whose land is too poor to raise cows.

Until about six years ago, unless you were on friendly terms with a Bedouin family, it was exceedingly difficult to find well-made goats' and sheeps' milk cheeses in Israel. The large dairies that dominated the local market had decided, without consulting the consumer, that such cheeses would not be popular, and made very few goats' milk cheeses. Frankly, most of the cheeses they produced, whether from cows', goats' or sheep's milk, were so bland and unexciting that they had little to do with the Mediterranean cheese-making tradition.

As if to demonstrate that consumers are more important than large corporations, sixteen different small dairies are now producing goats' and sheep's milk cheeses, many of which are of a quality to rival the best cheeses of the Pyrenees, Provence, Spain and Italy. Depending on the season, the part of the country in which the cheeses are made, and the style of individual cheese-makers, there are now so many good goats' and sheep's milk cheeses available that no list could hope to be complete. Although feta, brinza, kashkeval, labane and several Bulgarian varieties remain the best known, they are only the tip of an iceberg of cheeses waiting to be tasted. Ranging in style from soft and sweet to firm and salty; from hard and pungent to gently herbed cream-style cheeses; and from ridiculously low to marvelously high fat content, such cheeses are now readily available, if not at supermarkets, at delicatessen shops that have become a major source of supply for cheese lovers.

As to Olive Oil

"It is easier," the Talmud says, "to raise a legion of olive trees in Galilee than to bring up one child in the Land of Israel." Precisely what this says about the difficulties of raising children in ancient or modern Israel is hard to say, but it is clear that the olive has been an inescapable fact of life in the Mediterranean region for thousands of years.

From ancient times, one of the most lasting symbols of the Mediterranean Basin and the Holy Land has been the olive tree. The source of the wealth of many regional peoples, these delectable fruits are frequently mentioned in the Bible, the New Testament and the Koran, and one of the most universal emblems of peace is the olive branch.

Because olives grew so easily in the rocky, sandy lands of the Mediterranean Basin, olive oil became to the region what butter is to northern Europe. In ancient Israel, where nearly every kitchen was equipped with a small press for extracting oil, the olive provided food and lighting fuel as well as cooking oil. Even the hard wood of the olive trees was valued and often used in construction. By the time of the Roman conquest (first century BCE), the olive had become one of the most basic dietary items, and the meals of the poor consisted primarily of olives, beans, figs and cheese eaten with a porridge made from millet.

The olive never fell out of favor as a regional staple; until a very few years ago, however, finding a bottle of olive oil that had been made by the cold press method or was categorized as either Extra Virgin or Virgin was cause for celebration. Even though olive oil has been made in the region since Biblical times, most local consumers remained so naive that they willingly purchased oils so high in acid content that they were categorized as "candle oil." Even worse, much of the oil that was available was bitter and harsh and left a distinctly greasy feeling in the mouth.

Here again, change did not come from large companies but from adventurous souls who decided that there was no reason that Israeli oil could not compete in quality with the best of Europe. Today, thanks to a handful of small companies, Israeli olive oil has attained a quality so high that it can now be found in the most prestigious gourmet shops of New York, London and Paris.

Wine has been made in Israel since pre-Biblical times but, if the truth be told, until about fifteen years ago, there was no mason to be proud of those wines. The wines shipped to ancient Egypt were so bad that they had to be seasoned with honey, pepper and juniper berries to make them palatable, and those sent to Rome and England during the height of Roman civilization were so thick and syrupy sweet that no modern consumer could possibly approve of them. So bad were most of these wines that it was probably a good thing that the Moslem conquest in 636 CE imposed a twelve-hundred-year halt to the local wine industry.

The production of wine in the Land of Israel only started again in 1870, when the Mikveh Israel Agricultural School, near Jaffa, began experimenting with vines that had been imported from Europe. The nascent industry got an enormous boost in 1882, when Baron Edmond de Rothschild donated large sums of money to be invested in the development of local vineyards.

The Baron, who hoped to make wine one of the main economic staples of the newly-established Jewish settlements, financed the construction of two wineries, one in Rishon Lezion and the second in Zichron Ya'akov; both were completed during the last decade of the 19th century. Both of those wineries still exist and are now part of Carmel Mizrachi, the largest producer of wines in modern-day Israel. Even with the continued financial support of the Rothschild family, all did not run smoothly. By the turn of the century, vineyards covered more than half of the total Jewish land under cultivation. Before long there was such a surplus of grapes that the Baron paid farmers to convert their fields from grapes to olives, citrus fruits and almonds, and nearly thirty percent of the vines were uprooted. Nor did the Baron's idea of providing kosher wines to Jews the world over prove profitable for very long. The lucrative Russian and American markets were both lost, the first to the excesses of revolutionary zeal and the second because of prohibition. By 1948, only 4,250 acres were planted in grapes and Carmel Mizrachi was the new nation's only large winery.

Most of the wines produced in the country at the time remained of low quality and held little interest for those concerned with the consumption of fine wine. Even though Jews have many traditional religious, communal and family activities that include wine, wine consumption was very low and what was drunk was usually sweet, red and often fortified, certainly not the kinds of wines to interest connoisseurs. This is despite the fact that there is no contradiction whatsoever between the laws of kashrut and the ability to produce truly fine wines.

In 1983 the Golan Heights Winery opened, heralding a local wine revolution. Not limited by either outdated winemaking traditions or an unwieldy corporate structure, the young winery imported good vine stock from California, built a state-of-the-art kosher winery, and added to this the enthusiasm and knowledge of young American winemakers who had been trained at the University of California at Davis.

Equally important, the Golan winery began to encourage vineyard owners to improve the quality of their grapes and, in the American tradition, paid bonuses for grapes with high sugar and acid content and rejected those grapes they perceived as substandard. The winery was also the first to realize that wines made from Grenache, Semillon, Petite Sirah and Carignan grapes would not put them on the world wine map and focused on planting and making wines from Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, white Riesling, Merlot, and Gewurztraminer.

The Golan wines were a success from the beginning. The winery, which is owned by the kibbutzim and other cooperative farms that supply it with grapes, now produces over three million bottles annually, and is currently increasing its output by about 20% each year. Since 1991, 30% of the wines produced at the winery has been designated for export, primarily to the United States and England.

Carmel Mizrachi remains the nation's largest wine producer, producing about 13 million bottles of wine annually and still controlling about 50% of the local wine market. Partly in reaction to the success of the Golan Heights Winery, and partly because of changes in upperlevel management, Carmel has stirred from its long period of non-progress. Today, the winery produces a line of up-market dry wines, although about 20% of their production is still devoted to sweet wines.

The medium-sized, family-owned Baron Winery and Segal Brothers both produce respectable white and red wines, both varietal and blends. Two other privately owned large wineries, Barkan and Binyamina, have decided to upgrade their images and are now releasing wines that are being well-received on the local market. Even the long-established Ephrat winery, which for many years catered to that segment of the religious population that sought out sweet, sticky wines, has begun to produce better wines.

Among other interesting developments in recent years has been the opening of a number of boutique wineries, each of which produces between eight and twenty thousand bottles of wine annually. Since it opened eight years ago, Meron Wineries has consistently given the market excellent Sauvignon Blancs, Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignons; the kibbutz-owned Tzora Winery is now producing noteworthy Cabernet Sauvignons and Sauvignon Blancs; the winery of Ya'ir Margalit has produced what many consider the most individual and among the very best Cabernet Sauvignon wines of the nation; and Eli Ben Zaken is now producing world-class Cabernet Sauvignons.

Between the establishment of the State of Israel and the early 1990s, wine consumption in the country remained steady at about 3.9 liters per person annually. Recently, however, the figure has risen to almost 5.5 liters; while this remains low (compared to 7.5 liters in England, 11 in the US and 60 in France), it seems that more and more Israelis share a growing appreciation of high-quality wine, and there has been a marked shift to dry wines.

While not even the most optimistic among Israelis would claim that the nation is producing wines at the level of those of the great Chateaux of Bordeaux or the finest estates of Burgundy, many respected wine critics in Israel and abroad concur that the best Israeli wines now compete easily with the wines of California, Chile, Australia and other New World wineproducing nations.

There are two oddly persistent misconceptions about dining in Israel - the first being that dining out in Israel consists largely of eating falafel, shawarma, borekas and humous, and the second being that there is something special about what has become known as the "luxurious Israeli breakfast." Despite these longstanding myths, there is nothing Israeli about falafel, shawarma, borekas or humous and, despite its charms, there is nothing especially Israeli about the breakfasts served at most Israeli hotels.

In order to set the culinary record straight, let it be known that falafel - deep fried balls of minced chickpeas, parsley, coriander, onions and garlic - outdates the existence of the State of Israel by several thousand years, archeologists having discovered the remains of ground chickpeas in the tombs of several of the Pharaohs. The equally popular shawarma, marinated lamb slices roasted slowly on a rotating vertical skewer, are Turkish in origin, as are borekas, which are cheese- or potato-filled filodough pastries. As for humous, most food historians agree that the dish originated some 4,000 years ago, probably in North Africa.

With regard to the breakfast habits of Israelis, no one who lives in the country, not even the most dedicated kibbutz members, eats a breakfast anything like those extravagant feasts served in most hotels. In fact, the only thing that sets such breakfasts apart from those served in other hotels around the world is their lack of meat, absent because the combination of meat and dairy foods is not kosher.

The good news on the Israeli culinary scene is that awareness of international trends in cookery has increased dramatically in recent years. Although two fine French restaurants, Alhambra and Casbah, opened in the early 1960s, they stood as lone culinary oases for many years. In fact, until about a decade ago, when most Israelis dined out, it was at Middle Eastern, North African, Balkan or Eastern European restaurants. In other words, people were eating the same things at restaurants that they were eating in their homes.

Starting about fifteen years ago (by coincidence, perhaps, parallel to the opening of the Golan Heights Winery), five young chefs (Itamar Davidov, Tsachi Buchester, Israel Aharoni, Chaim Cohen and Simon Reisher) opened restaurants that changed the dining experience in Israel.

Even though ethnic foods, falafel, humous and shawarma remain popular, the very best restaurants in the country now offer dishes that are as heavily influenced by the most sophisticated levels of French and Italian cookery as they are by the traditions of the Mediterranean Basin. What has developed is not so much a fusion cuisine as a natural blending of ingredients and cooking styles indigenous to the region. Incidentally, although one can dine fairly well and maintain kashrut, none of the very best restaurants in the country are kosher.

Equally crucial in the elevation of the best restaurants in the country to an enviable level of quality are the talents of their chefs. The skills of Chaim Cohen, for example, are based on a combination of skill and refinement. His is not so much a nouvelle cuisine as it is a "new classicism," a light, fresh and natural style that is steady and intelligent. Because Cohen's style is marked by the free use of aromatic herbs and light sauces, his dishes are distinctly Mediterranean while remaining uniquely his own. Dishes such as his canapes of eggplant filled with goats' cheese, his exquisite tomato espresso, his foie gras with vanilla sauce, and his lamb chops garnished with polenta show occasional signs of chutzpah, but one finds no need to resent that because his dishes are so full of gentle and natural flavor.

Equally imaginative, although leaning a bit more towards the classic and the outspoken, are the dishes offered by Israel Aharoni. Among his most exquisite offerings are a dish in which paper-thin slices of grouper carpaccio are served on a seviche of sea bass together with fingersized red mullets. The combination would be lovely on its own, but by serving it with an essence of green herbs the dish is transformed into an absolute marvel. Others of Aharoni's most charming dishes are zucchini flowers filled with finely chopped morille mushrooms; his foie gras pate (arguably the best in the country) served with lentils and a rich Port wine sauce; and his medallions of lamb served with carmelized shallots, forest mushrooms and green broad beans.

Eyal Shani is another chef who has found an almost ideal way in which to combine the best of French and Italian cookery with the natural flavors of the Mediterranean. Since it opened eight years ago, nearly everything about Shani's restaurant has been outrageous. The prices sometimes soar to epic heights and some of Shani's fanciful ideas, such as sprinkling some of his dishes with tiny wild flowers, grilling certain dishes only over apple wood charcoal, and using specially imported yellow salt from Brittany, have bordered on the outrageous. But he is an extraordinarily talented chef and his flights of fancy frequently produce dishes that make for marvelous adventures in dining. The large round flat foccaccia sprinkled with fine olive oil and herbs is so good that one might be tempted to make a full meal of it, with nothing more than a bottle of wine. This would be an error, however, for the pigeon consomme is so luxurious that calling it merely a "soup" would be a sin; the fillets of locus with white butter sauce are good enough to make one cry for joy; the "potato cream," a light and fluffy rosemary-flavored puree that accompanies the fish, delights the eye as much as the palate; and his lamb chops, intentionally browned on one side and left completely pink on the other, are served with a sauce so light and delicate that it tantalizes all of the senses.

Shani, Cohen and Aharoni, like others of their colleagues, are each constantly reinventing their dishes, and one cannot help but admire their passion for purity, their discrete use of oils and herbs and their passion for maintaining the natural flavors and textures of whatever ingredients they are using. One of the younger generation of chefs now making his mark is Ofer Gal, who offers a superb lasagna that comes with two sauces, one of sumac and the other a reduction of tarragon; lightly breaded slices of lamb brain in a tantalizing sweet-sour sauce; and whole quail that are filled with fresh goose liver. Two other young chefs, Ezra Kedem and Tamar Blay, show equal talent, and dishes such as their seafood, which is lightly grilled and then set on a bed of endive, their carpaccio of lamb in a gentle marinade of basil and olive oil, their zucchini flowers filled with seafood mousse and their raviolis filled with pumpkin cream provide fine examples of their talents.

An Israeli Cuisine?

Several local and American food writers and chefs are claiming to have discovered the "true Israeli cuisine." After a visit several years ago, American chef Roseanne Gold became poetically inspired about her discoveries. So enthusiastic was Gold that she talked about American chefs who are currently adding "Israeli dishes" to their menus.

Todd English of "Olives" in Charlestown, Massachusetts offers a dish of baked lamb with cucumber sauce and pieces of flat bread that are topped with goats' cheese and tomatoes; Andrew Nathan, chef and owner of New York City's "Frontiere," makes his own harissa to serve with merguez sausage and couscous salad; Monique Barbou of "Fuller's" in Seattle lists one dish of "spicy falafel with lemon-techina dressing, homemade pita and dukkah spice"; and Don Pintabonna of New York's "Tribeca Grill" says he has created a halvah parfait.

What seems to have escaped the attention of Gold and her colleagues is that there is precious little Israeli influence in these dishes. Lamb and cucumber sauce is a traditional Syrian combination; harissa sauce originated in Tunisia; merguez sausage and couscous are from the cuisines of Morocco and Algeria; and dukkah spice was probably first made in Egypt. The closest that any of these chefs have come to anything really Israeli is the halvah parfait. Even though halvah itself has its roots in Turkey, credit for the parfait must go to Tsachi Buchester, who invented the dish.

What Gold, who is the consulting chef to several of New York's most prestigious restaurants, actually discovered during her two-week visit to Israel was not so much Israeli cuisine as the cooking styles and the ingredients of the Middle East and North Africa. As to the "real" Israeli cuisine, most Israeli chefs and restaurant critics acknowledge that the last time all Israelis shared a common cuisine was during the forty years that they wandered in the Sinai desert.

The truth is that fifty years after the founding of the modem State of Israel, the Israeli table is still graced with dishes of people who have immigrated from some 80 different nations and a host of distinct culinary backgrounds. While there is a kindling of awareness of the more developed cuisines of France, Italy and the Far East, many of the dishes served have their roots in the peasant traditions of the countries of people who brought their favorite dishes with them when they immigrated.

The most pervasive culinary influences in Israel are the cooking styles of the Middle East, North Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, and Central and Eastern Europe. So devoted are many to the food of their origins that there has been little crossfertilization between these varied styles.

Of all these cookery styles, probably the best-known throughout Israel remains that of the Middle East. Because most of the inhabitants of the Middle Eastern nations are Moslems and are, like Jews, forbidden to eat pork, Israelis have been readily able to adopt these culinary styles to their own tables. In addition to the indigenous cookery of Israeli Arabs, Jews from Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, Egypt, Libya and Yemen have all made unique contributions to the national table.

A second major influence on Israeli cuisine comes from the peoples of the Maghreb, the North African nations of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Among the most renowned dishes of these countries are couscous and shakshouka. Originally devised by wandering Berber tribesmen millennia ago, couscous is a stew based on hard wheat semolina, topped with simple-to-prepare meats and a variety of vegetables and accompanied by side dishes. As with nearly any stew, couscous comes in an infinite number of varieties. Algerian versions invariably include tomatoes; Moroccan offerings rely on saffron; and Tunisian couscous is highly spiced. The side dishes also vary widely, depending on the whims of individual cooks. Wherever it is served, however, couscous will be accompanied by a bowl of hot sauce to be added to each diner's portion in accordance with his or her tolerance for such condiments. Side dishes include steamed chickpeas, meatballs, sausages, lamb chops and a variety of fried or grilled vegetables. Shakshouka is another beloved dish of the Maghreb. In this dish, ubiquitous in Israel, eggs are poached over tomatoes that have been sauteed together with onion, garlic and a generous variety of herbs.

Balkan cookery forms another important element of the Israeli table. From Greece and Turkey have come such popular dishes as moussaka (a baked eggplant, cheese and meat pie), dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) and incredibly light, honey-soaked baklava pastries. Israelis are also fond of the Greco-Turkish style of frying or grilling fish after seasoning with fresh herbs and lemon.

Because it reflects a blending of European and Middle Eastern influences, and because of substantial numbers of immigrants from these countries, the cookery of the Balkan states, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria, is particularly well-known in Israel. Mititei, the thumbshaped minced meat patties of Romania, and the mixed meat grill kebabsha of Bulgaria are both grilled on skewers and are not dissimilar to Middle Eastern shish kebabs. Other well-known dishes include Romanian tarator, a cold yoghurt and cucumber soup sprinkled with chopped walnuts and dill; Bulgarian djevetch', a medley of stewed vegetables similar to ratatouille, sometimes served with yoghurt; and Yugoslavian sarma, a variety of meat mixtures stuffed into cabbage leaves that have been pickled in brine. Especially popular are ciorba, the somewhat sour and hearty Balkan meat or fish and vegetable soup, and mamaliga, a sweetened solidified cornmeal Romanian dish similar to the Italian polenta. The culinary style of Central and Eastern Europe that has made itself most evident is that of the Eastern European kitchen. Diverse but rarely subtle, having evolved primarily in the shtetls (the small towns and villages inhabited primarily by Jews in Eastern Europe), these are the foods that most Americans and Europeans consider to be typically Jewish. Much in evidence are dishes like gefilte fish (fish balls made of finely minced carp, pike or a mixture of both, generally served in their own jelly and often accompanied by horseradish); cholent (a slowly simmered beef stew traditionally prepared for the Sabbath meal); kishke (a peppery blend of bread crumbs, chicken fat and onions prepared sausage-like in beef casings); and knaidlach (egg and matzo meal-based dumplings). Other popular offerings from this variegated kitchen are kreplach, dumplings filled with ground meat or cheese and boiled or fried; latkes, fried potato pancakes; and a large assortment of salted, pickled and matjas herring dishes.

Immigrants from Russia, Poland and Hungary brought with them dishes from their countries of origin and have also made a major contribution to the culinary repertoire. From Hungary, whose cookery is marked by the liberal use of dozens of types of paprika, have come goulash soup and stew, a variety of carp dishes, dumplings and tarhonya (a kind of noodle). Polish cooking, from which Israelis have adopted freely, features the heavy use of sour cream and dill as main cooking ingredients.

A variety of cooking styles has come from the former Soviet Union. The dishes from Russia itself include borscht, the famous beet-based soup served hot or cold and sometimes containing meats, other vegetables or sour cream; golubtsy, stuffed cabbage rolls often served in a tangy tomato sauce; kulebiaka, a salmon mousse baked with a flaky pastry dough; and several chicken dishes including Chicken Kiev and Chicken Pojarsky. Among the best-known Russian dishes throughout Israel are pirogi, miniature turnovers stuffed with chopped meat, vegetables or fruit.

From the Ukraine come kasha (buckwheat) dishes and vareniki, dumplings stuffed with a savory or sweet filling such as cheese, potatoes, meat or fruit. From the Caucasian republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan have come barbecue specialties such as skewered lamb shishlik and tabaka, pressed fried whole chicken served with a walnut-based sauce.

Other culinary styles that have made themselves felt, albeit on a lesser scale, are those of India and Ethiopia. With the exception of commercially prepared food products and the abominable fast-food joints that are developing in Israel as in the rest of the world, American culinary trends have not developed and the best culinary endeavors of the United States remain largely unknown locally.

Daniel Rogov is the restaurant and wine critic for the daily newspaper Ha'aretz. He also writes a regular column for Wine Magazine and contributes culinary and wine articles to newspapers in Europe and the United States.