Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid

Food, Culture & Society
An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
ISSN: 1552-8014 (Print) 1751-7443 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rffc20
Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid
Rafi Grosglik & Uri Ram
To cite this article: Rafi Grosglik & Uri Ram (2013) Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid, Food, Culture &
Society, 16:2, 223-243, DOI: 10.2752/175174413X13589681351296
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04 Grosglik FCS 16.2:Layout 1 29/4/13 09:36 Page 223
Food,
Culture
Society
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volume 16 issue 2 june 2013
Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid

REPRESENTATIONS OF CHINESE FOOD AND CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION IN
ISRAEL
Rafi Grosglik
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Uri Ram
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Abstract
This article uses Chinese food as a prism to analyze the process of globalization in Israeli
culture since the 1970s. We describe three distinct eras in the evolution of culinary
globalization within Israel: first, the appearance of a variety of foods and tastes perceived
as representations of “other” nations; second, the commodification of these foods and
tastes and their distribution via fast-food chains as mass consumption items (i.e.
“McDonaldization”); and third, the creation of a cosmopolitan eating experience. The
article also posits that the common perception of globalization in Israel as solely
“Americanization” is flawed, as globalization also takes the form of an ethnic-national and
a hybrid-cosmopolitan representation. Finally, our third argument indicates that Chinese
food serves as a symbolic marker in the sphere of social stratification. In each of its
mutations, Chinese food has operated as a token of status distinction. In the first era,
Chinese food served to differentiate the emergent affluent class; in the second, it became
inexpensive and commonplace, and hence lost its differentiating quality; and in its third,
Chinese food reacquired upper-class associations when it became identified with fine
cosmopolitan taste.
Keywords: Chinese food, staged authenticity, Americanization, globalization,
hybridization, McDonaldization, culinary culture
DOI:
10.2752/175174413X13589681351296
Reprints available directly from the
Introduction
publishers. Photocopying permitted by This article uses Chinese food in Israel as a prism to consider the ways global
licence only © Association for the
Study of Food and Society 2013 culture is woven into the Israeli local culture. Food is one of the main products
223
Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel
through which global processes can be understood and their changes can be
explored. As the sociologist George Ritzer has indicated, food makes one of the
“great flows” in a “world [that] has ‘melted’ or is in the process of ‘melting’ and has
become liquefied” (Ritzer 2010: 7). One of the reasons for using food as an artifact
that discloses the unfolding processes of globalization is its material substance,
which allows tracking the evolution in its form from the initial growing stages,
through processing to consumption. Another reason for the increasing interest in
food is its symbolic dimension, embodying feelings, emotions and extensive cultural
meanings (Wilk 2009: 185).1
By focusing on the margins between its material and symbolic transformations,
we will argue that the shifting position of Chinese food in Israel occurred in line
with changing global processes and tastes.
Our main argument is that Israel’s culinary globalization, as represented by the
case study in front of us, has, over time, manifested three different patterns: first,
the emergence in the 1970s and 1980s of a variety of foods and flavors perceived
as ethnic, exotic, and a representation of “another nationality,” while it was
consumed in fine restaurants; second, a hyper-commercialization of these foods
and flavors in the 1990s, and their marketing in mass consumption fast-food chains
(“McDonaldization”); third, in the first decade of the new millennium, a hybridization
of Chinese food with different Asian and global food ingredients to create a
cosmopolitan dining experience.
Another implication of our argument is that the approach that identifies the
globalization of Israeli culture as Americanization (Azaryahu 2000; Ram 2007a;
First and Avraham 2009) refers to just one aspect of the globalization process and
ignores its other manifestations. Azaryahu, for example, argues that “[The]
Americanization of Israel is an important aspect of the emergent ‘new Israel,’
representing a society at the final stages of the foundation phase of its history”
(Azaryahu 2000: 43). We will argue that Israel’s cultural globalization includes, in
addition to a dimension of Americanization, an ethnic-national dimension and a
hybrid-cosmopolitan dimension. Thus, globalization can manifest itself also as
aesthetic Asianization, or by Easterniziation of the West (Campbell 2007).
Like other authors, we believe therefore, that we must distinguish between the
terms Americanization and globalization. While the former indicates the prevalence
of the American consumer culture and its patterns around the world, the latter
indicates a wider range of influences and changes that may be expressed in multi-
directional ways (Friedman 1999; Ritzer and Stillman 2003).
Following this argument, we suggest that in addition to the United States, the
Eastern Asian geographical and cultural space represents one of the key centers
influencing the mosaic of styles in the current global cultural fabric. A prominent
example of the influence of the East on the West is the wide dispersion of
restaurants representing East Asian culture in Western cities, including Thai,
Japanese, Vietnamese and, most of all, Chinese restaurants. Having studied the
proliferation of ethnic and exotic restaurants in the United Kingdom, sociologist
Alan Warde concludes that the appearance of “other” cuisines (those that are
perceived as ethnic, exotic or authentic) in the West is actually an expression of
224
diversity of tastes that oppose American standardization (Warde 2000: 311).

Similarly, referring to ethnic food in Israeli culture, Gvion argues that in
consideration of the cultural standardization that globalization advances, ethnic
food has become an expression of difference and diversity (Gvion 2005: 75), while
Goldstein-Gidoni shows that globalization also includes “Japanization,” and not only
Americanization (Goldstein-Gidoni 2003).2
Our third argument concerns the symbolic meaning of Chinese food in Israeli
social stratification and in the array of cultural differences (following the approach
of Bourdieu 1984). We will see in every stage of its transfiguration that Chinese
food appears as a commodity used to indicate class position. In its first incarnation,
Chinese food consumption is used for differentiating a new wealthy class. In the
second incarnation, Chinese food loses its distinctive quality, as it becomes
inexpensive and common. Finally, in the third, Chinese food reacquires superior
class features as it is combined with other Asian flavors, and becomes identified
with refined cosmopolitan taste.
Analysis of the culinary transformations in Chinese food in Israel thus teaches
about the three different moments in the era of globalization from the 1970s and
1980s until now: a moment of “exotic-other-national” inclusion, a moment of
Americanization and commodification of “otherness”; and a moment of “otherness”
constructed according to global and refined cosmopolitan taste.
The change in Chinese food was studied by analyzing its production and
distribution practices in Israel, based on data collected from several sources,
including a series of interviews conducted between 2006 and 2008 with
restaurateurs, chefs, professional cooks and retailers dealing with Chinese food.
Our interviewees include Israeli entrepreneurs who opened Chinese restaurants,
Israeli concessionaires of restaurant chains, Israelis in management positions in
Chinese and Asian restaurants, Israeli cooks engaged in cooking Chinese food, and
migrant workers of East Asian origin living and working in Israel. In addition,
interviews were conducted with well-known chefs who became famous because of
their vocation in Chinese and Far Eastern cuisines. These people operate as
“cultural agents” (“arbiter elegantium” in the words of Bourdieu [1984: 255]),
involved both in the production of Chinese food and in its cultural and media
representation. Observations were conducted in twenty-eight Chinese restaurants
between 2006 and 2007. Furthermore, we conducted content analysis of restaurant
menus and reviews of Chinese restaurants, as well as content analysis of restaurant
websites and Chinese food cookbooks published in Israel.
“Original Chinese”: The 1970s and 1980s

In Israeli culture, China—perhaps more than any other country—represents
otherness, exoticism and remoteness. The statement, “It’s like Chinese to me”
Food,
Culture
Society
& (commonly heard in Israel in relation to things where content is not understood),
is testament to this.
volume 16 Accordingly, China’s food culture has long been seen as distant from Israeli food
issue 2 culture; as a popular Hebrew song from the 1920s says: “There are tea and rice in
june 2013 China, the remote land.”3 Since that song was written, however, there have been
225
many changes in the way Western people, including Israelis, see China and its
culture.
Israel’s culinary culture has changed and expanded greatly from the time of the
settlement period (1881–1947) to the present. From the second half of the 1950s,
subsequent to the regime of austerity and rationing (Tzena, 1948–53), expressions
of materialism began to appear in Israeli culture. Leisure eating culture evolved
and luxury foodstuffs were offered to the younger generation, who were labeled
using the culinary metaphor “the espresso generation” after the espresso machines
that appeared in Tel Aviv coffee shops at that time (Almog 1999). However, until the
1970s, dining in fine restaurants was not widespread in Israel. Survival remained
the dominant ethos and eating was considered an act of physical maintenance, not
an act of entertainment or pleasure. The major reasons were lack of means and an
ethos of modesty. Eating in restaurants was thus perceived as an expression of
hedonism and as inappropriate to the collectivist society that had developed in
Israel. The cultural meaning given to food in Israel was primarily nationalistic,
expressed pride in eating the fruit of the national land, and was a product of
“national communal villages” (Almog 1999). Following the rise of consumerism,
however, the popularity of eating out in Israel began to rise in the 1970s (Ram 1999:
110; Kop 2005: 43; ICBS 2008).4
When Chinese food appeared in Israel, it represented an “other-national
cuisine.” During the 1970s and 1980s, Chinese restaurants became prominent in
the new culinary culture, embodying a new lifestyle among the affluent middle class.
The high price of Chinese food, its novel flavors and new serving styles all led to
Chinese food acquiring an image of prestige (Sanders-Torino 2007). To use the
terms of Bourdieu (1984), Chinese food served as a distinguishing and distinctive
“taste.”
From the 1980s, the proliferation of Chinese food in Israel increased. Chinese
restaurants became an attraction for many, especially among secular-bourgeois
circles, but later also among other social categories. The occasion that symbolizes
more than anything else the entry of Chinese food into the Israeli culinary field was
the opening of the Yin-Yang restaurant in Tel Aviv in 1981, which operated for 26
years. The restaurant was founded and managed by Yisrael Aharoni, an Israeli who
studied at a cooking school in Taiwan in 1979, and is widely regarded as the main
promoter of Chinese food in Israel (Sanders-Torino 2007). The vast popularity of
Aharoni’s restaurant and the commercial success of his cookbook made him not
only a successful chef but a “culinary hero” (Ezrati 2003).
So why did Chinese food specifically become so popular and why precisely at this
time? Aharoni answers:
In the 1980s, an abnormal situation developed in Tel Aviv: dozens of Chinese

restaurants operated simultaneously. Yin-Yang was one of them but perhaps the
most successful. The reason for this, incidentally, is the virtue of Chinese food
which suited the taste of so many people. Everyone found something in it: one
found the sweetness he loves, the other the spiciness he loves, this one found
the fish he loves and that one the vegetables he loves, and everyone eats rice.5
226
According to Aharoni, the variety of flavors and rich culinary offerings bestow
Chinese food with cultural neutrality, a key contributor to the success of Chinese
food and making it Israel’s favorite ethnic food: “It had everything. It worked for
everyone. Chinese cuisine did not express any discrimination between ethnic groups
… and it was remote enough not to offend members of any ethnic group and suited
them all.”6
The cultural and geographic distance described by Aharoni relates to the cultural
and geographical distance of China from Israel. Arguably, it was precisely because
of this distance that Chinese cuisine—rather than one of the cuisines of Jewish
diaspora communities—served as the spearhead in creating an Israeli gastronomic
field and the widespread practice of eating out in Israel.
But the affection Israeli diners acquired for Chinese food did not reflect on any
familiarity with the components of Chinese culture, or any adoption of Chinese
eating patterns. On the contrary, the distance between Israeli and Chinese culture,
combined with the country’s increasing openness to Western cultural utterances,
led Chinese cuisine in Israel to grow in the pattern of the Western version of the
cuisine.7 Evidence of this can be seen in The Chinese Cuisine, by the famous Israeli
cookbook author Ruth Sirkis (1979). This was the first cookbook in Hebrew to deal
with Chinese cooking, and in fact the first to deal with any East Asian cuisine. This
book has so far sold an unprecedented 15 million copies.8 In the opening chapter,
Sirkis writes:
The question “What is actually Chinese food?” … concerned me since the early
sixties, when I lived in Boston, USA … Until then, the subject was like a locked
garden—alien, strange and distant. But a number of visits to Chinatown and a
few servings of wonton soup and chop suey platters aroused my curiosity and
prompted me to expand on the subject. Over the years I visited the world’s
largest Chinese districts—New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London.
(Sirkis 1979: 8)
Thus, it was not a visit to China that exposed Sirkis to Chinese cuisine, but rather
her stays in Western metropolises. Indeed, it was dishes like “chop suey”—a dish
based on vegetables, chopped and stir-fried, which was developed by Chinese
immigrants in the United States (Barbas 2003)—that inspired and influenced her.
Much like Sirkis, the Israeli writer and food enthusiast Amos Kenan comments
that his first encounter with Chinese culinary culture was in Europe: “I’ve never been
to China … I was introduced to Chinese restaurants in Soho [London], and later in
the Chinese ghetto near the Lyon railway station in Paris” (Kenan 1970: 123).
Moreover, during this period, attempts were made to suit Chinese food to the
Food, Israeli palate through self-interpretation by local cooks and chefs. For example,
Culture
Society
& Western Chinese foods were adapted to the Jewish dietary laws (kashrut): the
popular American-Chinese dish pork in sweet and sour sauce became sweet and
volume 16 sour chicken, while pork in pineapple became chicken in pineapple.
issue 2 The main method used for cooking, serving and restaurant design, as well as
june 2013 illustration of Chinese food in cookbooks and popular media discourse, was in fact
227
a method of staging Chinese culinary culture. In the terms of the tourism scholar
Dean MacCannell, it was a “staged authenticity,” in which authentic cultural
elements were used to market commercial products (or tourist sites), in which they
lose their original (and local) meaning, and become representatives of the image of
the “other” (non-Western), aimed to place them in the expectation system of
Western consumers or tourists (MacCannell 1976).
In Israel, Chinese food was prepared and designed accordingly without
committing to any particular authenticity, but by using stereotypical
representations, through which Chinese culture and nation are imagined by
potential consumers. Thus, Aharoni describes how his restaurant Yin-Yang was
designed:
The restaurant looked pseudo authentic. It was a very personal and local
interpretation to what can be called authentic Chinese: red walls, interior design
that resembled some kind of golden pagoda … I insisted on serving the food in
classic Chinese dishes and chopsticks, although it was not customary in Israel.
But I insisted. Why? This is how you eat in China!9
The imagined design of Chinese cuisine enchanted many and aroused their curiosity,
as well as their appetites. At that time, eating at a Chinese restaurant was
considered to be an authentic culinary experience, although for reasons of kashrut
several ingredients characterizing the various cooking traditions in China were
entirely absent (such as seafood, pork, reptiles and offal). Not only were the foods
different from those customary in China, the basic concepts of the food culture in
China and the atmosphere that accompanies it were totally different. The meal
structure was actually typically Western and included an appetizer or soup, a large
protein main dish, a side dish of carbohydrates and a dessert. This meal structure
is foreign to the food cultures in East Asia, including China.10
Tableware such as chopsticks and food warmers were widely used, the
restaurants were decorated with ornaments associated with Chinese culture, the
walls were painted mostly in red and the waiters were East Asian migrant workers.
All these were designed to enhance the cultural experience of eating at the restaurant
and were the main components through which Chinese authenticity was staged.
It should be noted that the early stages of Israel’s culinary openness and the
emergence of haute cuisine were characterized by the importation of culinary
models from other national cuisines. Chinese cuisine was among the first of them.
Yisrael Aharoni explains:
Our preoccupation with food began with the import of foreign national cuisines.
For that matter “the stranger the better.” And for us, Chinese cuisine was ideal:
there was no stranger than that—geographically and culturally! Only later did
the Italian, French, Japanese and all the other cuisines arrive.11
Eating out was customary in Israel before the arrival of Chinese food, but it was
preceded by “eateries” (which appeared mainly in large cities) in which different
228
versions of imported food styles were served, such as roasted meats and
hamburgers (sold in Wimpy restaurants, the first international fast-food chain in
Israel), pizza and milkshakes (Almog 1999). As stated, Chinese restaurants had a
central and pioneering role at the beginning of the gourmet era of Israeli restaurant
business. Aharoni describes it well:
Chinese food preceded all others. It’s the first cuisine that brought the Israelis
to restaurants. I can say for certain that Chinese food freed people from the
feeling that spending money for a good meal is a sin. There were almost no real
restaurants in Tel Aviv and the most successful ones were Chinese restaurants.
Not only my restaurants, others as well such as The Red Chinese opened by
Yisrael Boyko … many years passed until other culinary trends arrived. Take
for instance pasta: wheat noodles were cooked at home and you could even
order them at a restaurant—”Spaghetti in Tomato Juice”—that’s what it was
called! But only after [the beginning of a gastronomic culture aroused by Chinese
food] wheat noodles received the name “pasta” and were considered Italian
food. 12
Chinese cuisine was staged and imagined according to culinary models conceived
in the West and marketed as a clear representation of Chinese national culture.
Much like curry powder was an icon representing India in Britain (Narayan 1997:
163–73), so the egg roll (the Hebrew term for a spring roll, which is a common
East-Asian dish) became the icon representing China in Israel. Moreover, while
culinary openness arose, there was a relatively diminished status for foods
symbolizing Israeli nationalism, such as chopped vegetable salad with lemon
dressing, cultured milk (leben) and falafel—dishes originating in Middle Eastern
cultures, which Jewish settlers in Israel had adopted as Israeli national symbols.
The success of foreign cuisines (first and foremost Chinese cuisine) in the 1980s and
onwards, expressed openness in Israeli middle class taste, which until the 1970s
was characterized by the preference for so-called “Israeli food.” Thus, the Israeli
culinary repertoire expanded from consisting exclusively of “national-Israeli food”
to include “other national food.”
Chinese restaurants operating in Israel during this period therefore represent
the first step in the globalization of Israel’s culinary culture, a process during which
there was a move away from any attempt to shape a symbolic Israeli “national
cuisine” (Raviv 2002:206–46; Sertbulut 2012). With this, there was widespread
openness to additional national cuisines and to adoption of culinary models
informed by emerging cultural Westernization.
Later, during the 1990s, other changes in the way Chinese food was prepared
Food, and distributed occurred.
Culture
Society
& “Speedy Chinese”: The 1990s
volume 16 From the second half of the twentieth century, Chinese restaurants and Chinese
issue 2 fast-food stalls spread to almost every city and metropolitan area in the West.
june 2013 Chinese restaurants became associated with inexpensive food, prepared quickly,
229
which can be packed as take-out. Chinese meals, packed in cardboard boxes

decorated with illustrations identifiable as Chinese (e.g. dragons, Chinese
pictograms or text using a typeface styled to look like Chinese characters) were
symbolic of the “take-out” culture. In the United Kingdom, for example, ethnic food
stalls—especially Chinese food—took a substantial share of the fast-food market
and even overtook the traditional English fish and chips market, which until then
had been the most popular (Roberts 2002: 216). It seems that the spread of Chinese
food in Western countries is a manifestation of a wider process, known as the
“proletarization of food.”
This process, which first appeared in the nineteenth century, is characterized by
standardization of production, processing, preservation and distribution modes of
all kinds of foods on a global scale, as well as the food being made accessible to
disadvantaged social groups (Goody 1982: 154–74). In a certain sense, the extent
of the proletarization of Chinese food in Western countries was similar to that of
other products undergoing proletarization in earlier periods: Mintz (2008) describes
the penetration of products such as coffee, sugar, tea and chocolate into European
culture—first as exotic and expensive goods, and later as everyday and common
(in Mintz’s words “proletarian hunger killers”)—due to technological developments
reducing processing, production and distribution costs. In the case of Chinese food,
the production and distribution methods that characterize American fast-food
chains made the cuisine available for mass consumption in the Western countries.
In Israel, the fast-food eating culture flourished in the early 1990s as American
fast-food chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut and others like them
began to establish themselves in the country. With the spread of fast-food eateries,
a comprehensive change took place in the Israeli gastronomic culture (Almog 1999;
Azaryahu 2000; Ram 2004). For instance, production and distribution of fast food
and ready-to-eat packaged food (take-out) was one of the most prominent culinary
changes of the twentieth century (along with ready-made frozen food), and many
consider it one of the salient manifestations of American cultural homogenization
spreading around the world. The most prominent of the fast-food chains is
McDonald’s, which became the symbol of the destruction of local particularistic
cultures by trans-national culture, as expressed by Ritzer’s concept of
“McDonaldization” (Ritzer 1995; see also Ram 2012). Fast-food chains sprouted
during the 1950s in the United States, as part of the Fordist production method,
characterized by a “bureaucratic imperative.” From the 1980s, American fast-food
chains underwent rapid globalization and became widespread around the world.13
The concept of McDonaldization describes the fast-food production line as a
contemporary expression of rational bureaucratic logic (Weber 1978 [1922]),
highlighting the patterns of efficiency, control, predictability and profitability.
In Israel, along with the consolidation of American fast-food, Chinese food also
began to appear in this format. Traditional cooking methods customary in China and
Far Eastern cuisine (such as strict and uniform cutting of ingredients, using a fixed
number of raw materials for preparing dishes and a short cooking time) were
converted to standard, measured and quick production practices. In this way,
Chinese cuisine, which was previously considered to represent refined taste and
230
associated with gourmet restaurants, became readily available to the masses,

common and consumed on street corners.
The Chinese version of fast food got a foothold in the Israeli culinary culture
through the success of chains that specialized in preparing it, such as Yossi Peking,
China-Town, Lemon-Grass, and—epitomizing the metamorphosis of delicate
Chinese cuisine to fast food—Speedy-Chinese. These chains used cooking and
distribution methods for serving dishes quickly. While some also began to use fixed-
price menus, they all copied the fast-food chains’ methods of displaying their wares
(e.g. displaying dishes on large illuminated posters), and employing low-wage
migrant workers (mostly of Eastern Asian origin, whose presence created a certain
amount of authenticity). Most of the food was prepared in advance and displayed
in large aluminum containers standing on top of a long counter. Customers were
invited to select from a menu or point to the dishes they desired. At a later stage,
some of the chains began stir-frying in front of the customer. Most chains gave the
option of eating in the restaurant area or having dishes packed for take-out.
One of the first chains to sell Chinese fast food was Pikansin (in Hebrew, a hybrid
between the words “spicy” and “China”). Pikansin, owned by the food businessman
Moshe Badash, was a great success at the time. The story of the chain and the
considerations that guided Badash illustrate how Chinese fast food in Israel became
popular as well as proletarian and accessible. In the late 1970s, Badash rented a
small hall in the city of Bnei Brak and began producing, industrial hummus, using
only a few workers. Over the years he expanded his business and established a
large factory by the name of Pikanti (“spicy”), producing salads and cold cuts.
Carried on a wave of success, he began to engage in additional kinds of food
production and marketing. Near the branches’ factory stores in Tel Aviv metropolis,
he established a chain of stores that sold two categories of prepared food: food
presented as home-made (e.g. boiled potatoes, roast chicken, beef dishes, cooked
vegetables), and food presented as Chinese food (e.g. chunks of chicken coated in
sesame seeds, steamed vegetables, egg rolls with sweet and sour sauce), marketed
under the brand name Pikansin. Badash describes the reasons for the success of
his enterprise:
The expansion of my concern was carried out using what I call the “Pikanti
method”—learn the market, determine what competitors are doing, reduce
costs and sell in large quantities. Even if the profit percentage is low, sales
volume takes care of it. (Leshem 2003)
The “Pikanti method,” it turns out, is consistent with the principles of

McDonaldization and through it the Pikansin brand became familiar and popular
Food, and accelerated the commercialization of Chinese food in Israel.
Culture
Society
& Principles of predictability and standardization stood at the base of the culinary
design of Chinese restaurants and stalls selling Chinese fast food in this period.
volume 16 The culinary offerings were almost identical in all restaurants, and were based on
issue 2 a limited range of foods, which, as stated, did not match the variety of offerings of
june 2013 Chinese cuisine. Egg roll, sweet and sour chicken and stir-fried vegetables cooked
231
quickly and cost-effectively have become the dishes most identified with Chinese
food in Israel, and have displaced other Chinese dishes (so to speak) from the
culinary space. The homology between “Chinese cuisine” and “Chinese fast food”
strengthened so much in Israel that those cooks and chefs who tried to expand the
repertoire of Chinese foods or to restore the cuisine’s former glory through
sophisticated cooking encountered a low demand. Indeed, according to Jug Lim,
proprietor of a Chinese restaurant in Beer-Sheva who was born in Hong Kong and
came to Israel as a migrant worker in 1984:
In Israel—all Chinese food is “stir-fried” [mokpatz in Hebrew]. The most

important for Israelis is that it will be stir-fried and that they see the cooks
working quickly, as in chains such as Lemon Grass or in food courts at malls.
I wanted to prepare other things, dishes that I’m used to from Hong-Kong,
cooked and steamed … complex dishes, but in this country people only want
stir-fried.14
Chinese restaurants, which a decade previously operated as fine restaurants, also

began to adopt marketing techniques characteristic of American food chains, such
as home delivery, printing the restaurant’s logo on food packaging and adding
children’s meals to the menu.
Adopting McDonaldized production patterns and assimilating them into the
production processes of Chinese food led to the integration of Chinese food into
the fast-food culture in Israel, even making the cuisine a central part of the
McDonaldization and Americanization processes of Israeli culture. The most
significant proof of this is that in and among the American fast-food chains and
Israeli “food in pita bread” stalls in every shopping mall food court in Israel, one can
always find a Chinese fast-food stall.
The transformation through which Chinese food went in Israel—from a part of
the haute cuisine to a component of daily eating habits—occurred as part of an
intensifying process of globalization, containing dimensions of rationalization,
commodification and consumerism (Ram 2012).
The McDonaldization of Chinese food shows the depth of cultural
Americanization in Israel. Although the McDonald’s chain serves as a significant
marker of the global tendency to subsume the local (Ram 2004), it seems that the
effects of Americanization deviated from simply suppressing Israeli national cultural
representations, and began to dominate representations of “otherness”.
McDonaldization and Americanization are expressed, therefore, not only in the
extensive spread of global retail chains selling hamburgers, fries and pizza, but
also in the inclusion of the American medium on ethnic-cultural-culinary
representations, while assimilating the “other” or the “authentic” in the mass and
homogeneous production line of consumer goods.
We argue that this process reflects the manner in which authenticity and
instrumentality exist side by side in a bidirectional dialectic process: at the symbolic
level, the food represents the Chinese “authenticity,” but at the same time, at the
practical-structural level, the food is designed and consumed in a standard and
232
homogeneous industrial configuration. In this manner, symbolic heterogeneity exists

within structural homogeneity. The intersection between global and local is
therefore conducted on two levels: at the symbolic level, heterogenization occurs
(“authentic Chinese” dishes are added to the menu), but at the structural level,
homogenization occurs (all foods become “fast food”—for more detailed argument,
see Ram 2004).
It is not only “food” that matters, but also, and especially, what the food
represents. Rick Fantasia quite rightly argues that the social process that fast food
represents is even more important than the material aspects of the food itself:
Fast food … has had less to do with food than it has with the cultural
representations of Americanism embodied within it … if we were to focus
attention on the food items themselves, particularly as they are exported across
borders, we would tend to miss an important part of the cultural inscription that
marks the fast-food phenomenon. (Fantasia 1995: 229–30)
This being the case, the transformation of Chinese food in Israel to Chinese fast
food subjugated, in the 1990s, the national-Chinese representations to the pattern
of the American consumer economy. In this manner, the food representing “staged
typical Chinese,” as described above, became an indicator of the increasingly
extended Americanization of Israeli culture, as Israel became progressively more
capitalist.
“Hybrid Chinese”: The 2000s

The third stage in the transmutation of Chinese food in Israel is characterized by a
mix of flavors and styles, and the expropriation of the food and restaurants
themselves from any specific local identity. At this stage, Chinese food is bound
with a variety of other sources and becomes hybrid and cosmopolitan. Ulf Hannerz
(2002) argues that local culture and cosmopolitan culture can no longer exist
separately from one another, and he suggests seeing cultural trans-national fluidity
as part of a broad process of “maturation” of a new merging of globalism and
localism (as opposed to the approach which sees cultural globalization as a process
of saturation of local and peripheral cultures by the dominant Western culture).
Cook and Crang (1996) argue that food culture in the global era is characterized by
the emergence of a variety of local culinary artifacts, which were displaced, loaded
with new representations of place and time and incorporated into one another to
create a “world on a plate.” From the beginning of the twenty-first century,
extensive changes have occurred in Israeli Chinese food, illustrating that
“maturation” is realized not only within the integration of global and local, but also
within the integration of different ethnic-culinary components, creating new hybrid
Food,
Culture
Society
& cuisines.
Indeed, hybridization and mixing had already occurred previously in the
volume 16 evolution of Chinese food in Israel, as discussed above, in which it was wrapped in
issue 2 cultural packages emphasizing cultural duality (Western-Chinese and Israeli-
june 2013 Chinese in the 1980s, American-Chinese in the 1990s). However, as discussed
233
below, integrating cultural representations creates a mosaic of identities and

postmodern styles, embodying, on the one hand, rejection of the homogeneity of
Chinese “originality,” and on the other hand, creative design of imaginary aspects
of a “global” cosmopolitan cuisine.
Culinary hybrid representations were made possible in recent decades once
Israeli society was established as an affluent consumer society, especially in view
of the growing exposure to (and accessibility of) economic and cultural stimuli from
abroad (Azaryahu 1998; Ram 1999, 2007a; Almog 2004; Filc 2004). Familiarity with
previously unexposed cultures, combined with an increase in the number of Israelis
visiting Chinese quarters in the West and China itself, resulted in many Israelis
perceiving both the gourmet and popular Chinese restaurants in Israel as
inauthentic. At the same time, explicit disapproval was being voiced against the
ways in which Chinese food in Israel had evolved. For example, Leon Alkalay chef
of Giraffe, a well-known restaurant in Tel Aviv explained: “The idea was to bring in
Chinese food and not call it Chinese, because Chinese food in Israel had become
garbage.” 15
Restaurant critic Daniel Rogov described the reasons for this disenchantment:
“Chinese restaurants in Israel provided Western Chinese food. In them, one could
get only flavors from the Far East but not the Far East in itself.”16
Thus, consumers began to avoid these restaurants. In response, three major
changes occurred.
The first change will be described as re-authentication of Chinese food. This
was reflected by the redesign of food in a way that aspired to represent “real”
Chinese culinary culture. Such a claim to authenticity is of course not unique to
this phase of the development of Chinese food in Israel. As discussed, Chinese food
restaurateurs had sought to position their food as authentic in the 1980s. But later,
after it became common and affordable, there was an attempt to rebrand and
differentiate the product, as well as enhance the symbolic capital associated with
its consumption. For this purpose, production and distribution practices were
assigned to identify the foods as identical to the actual food cooked and consumed
in China itself.
Comparisons of two cookbooks published by chef Yisrael Aharoni illustrate this
point well. In his earlier book, Aharoni’s Chinese Cooking (1985), the author uses
popular images of Chinese culture. However, in his later Chinese cookbook, China
Through Food (1994), he introduces Chinese food as it is in China. For example, the
way of eating dim sum is described in both books: in the first, the author describes
in a short paragraph the meaning of dim sum using the term memolaaim (stuffed
food). The term memolaaim is generally used to describe dishes made of vegetables
stuffed with rice or ground meats identified with the culinary culture of Jewish
immigrants from North Africa and Central Asia, as well as to describe Arab-style
stuffed food. In the context of Chinese culture, this term is plainly inappropriate. In
addition, the recipes in his earlier book are accompanied by a few pictures taken
in a studio or in a private kitchen in Israel and the names of the dishes are presented
in Hebrew, for example, Kisanim Tefohim (fluffy dumplings) or Saharonim
Metoganim (fried stuffed crescents). In his later book, however, Aharoni presents
234
a comprehensive and detailed narrative about eating dim sum, extending over five
full pages. This description includes the meaning of the name in Chinese, a detailed
description of dim-sum eating habits, an explanation about the types of dough from
which dumplings are made in China as well as the various kinds of stuffing. There
is also an extensive description of the geographical area where dim-sum culture
developed, the Guangdong province in Southern China. The written descriptions
are accompanied by photographs taken in China itself and the foods are mentioned
by their Chinese name, for example, sui-mai (steamed pork dumplings made of
wheat flour). When asked about the purpose of the book, Aharoni answered: “The
purpose of China Through Food was to present the food in its natural environment,
in its real context, where it was created, flourished, alive, and changing.” 17
Another example, also connected to dim-sum dishes in Israel, arises when one
examines the changes to the menus of the older restaurants, where some changed
the names of the dishes to their Chinese names: rice dough dumplings, for example,
was changed to the Chinese name har-gow.
The process of re-authentication was made possible by the increasing availability
of goods and imported food products such as canned Asian vegetables, spices, oils,
sauces and so forth. Many chefs testify that the use of these products has expanded
greatly and is intended to “get as close to the original as possible.”
The second change to take place since the turn of the twenty-first century is
hybridization. This is realized by the combination and distribution of Chinese food
along with other so-called Asian foods. From the beginning of the century, a large
number of restaurants that previously presented themselves as Chinese restaurants
made significant changes to their menus, the design of their restaurant,
management and marketing methods to become “Asian restaurants.” These
restaurants are characterized by menus that integrate dishes from different
sources, using ingredients and cooking methods related to other Asian cuisines,
integrating dishes traditionally marketed as Chinese, Thai and Japanese. Shay Levy,
manager of the Peking Restaurant in Tel Aviv describes:
Once, Chinese food amounted to an egg roll, fried rice and corn soup. Today,
Chinese cuisine finds it difficult to maintain a pure Chinese character and is
combined with flavors from Asian cuisine, which includes also seafood, assorted
noodles, Thai curries, dim sum and of course, sushi.18
Indeed, a glance at the menus of these Asian restaurants yields a mixture of foods,
flavors and styles. One can find what we call “Chinese-Israeli-American” dishes
(e.g. sweet and sour chicken and chop suey), along with Japanese sushi, Thai soups,
Vietnamese spring rolls and more. Mostly the dishes are shown using some kind of
Food, description regarding their geographical or cultural affiliation. An example of this
Culture
Society
& can be seen in the geographical references that appear next to the dishes on the
Giraffe restaurant’s menu: “the Malaysian dish,” “Gyoza (Japanese),” “the hot
volume 16 Philippine,” “Pad-Thai (Thai),” “salmon ramen (Japanese).”19
issue 2 The bricolage of flavors and styles is even more pronounced with the emergence
june 2013 of “fusion” and “Pan-Asian” restaurants in Israel. These restaurants offer different
235
kinds of dishes prepared according to East Asian cooking methods, or served in a

manner typical of those cultures, using imported ingredients. However, any mention
of a particular nationality or ethnic identity is completely excised from the
description of the dishes. For example, the menu of the Mor-Noodle-Bar—a
restaurant that operated in Beer Sheva—listed “Hoi-Sin chicken steak with rice
and stir fried vegetables” and “Tao Entrecote—aged entrecote steak with rice and
stir fried vegetables with black mushroom sauce.”
This trend of hybridization did not pass by the Chinese fast-food stalls, which
began to incorporate dishes representing other Asian cuisines in their menu,
especially sushi and the fried noodles identified with Thai cuisine.
Both re-authentication and hybridization delivered a paradoxical result: although
the food lacked a distinct ethnic identity, and despite creativity and improvisation
in its preparation, it was actually the insistence on using imported ingredients, as
well as the chefs’ in-depth familiarity with the original ingredients and flavors, that
made the Chinese food at the turn of the century represent authenticity far more
than the food served in the 1980s and 1990s in restaurants with a supposedly
distinctive Chinese identity.
The third change to have taken place since the early twenty-first century is what
we call re-differentiation. This is characterized by the refinement of Chinese food
in Israel. This refinement was realized in the attempt to “refresh” Chinese food,
which had grown a reputation as outdated and common, and to restore the glory
and prestige of its past. This was done through various adaptations and refinements
to “upgrade” dishes from the older national-Chinese stage. For example, the
tediously familiar fried chicken in sweet and sour sauce was elevated to “crisp
chicken tempura and vegetable tempura in sweet and sour sauce” as the Japanese
method of frying is perceived in Israel to be subtle and innovative.
The refinement of Chinese food is also evident in the use of elegant serving
dishes, such as large platters made of white china, designed in the form of square,
rectangular and asymmetrical shapes, and the noticeable absence of the serving
dishes associated with older generation of Chinese restaurants: rice plates
decorated with Chinese calligraphy and paintings, food heaters, red cloth napkins
and tablecloths and so on. All of these are now considered in bad taste, vulgar and
even kitsch. Breaking from the previously “heavy” design of the “Chinese
restaurant,” restaurant design has now become minimalist. Furthermore, most
restaurants now have a bar for serving alcohol, and play electronic Western
background music (not Chinese music or classical music, as was once the custom).
Even the opening hours of the restaurants have been extended into the night, in
order to attract a young clientele. Such developments follow the trend of abstract
style and distancing from exaggerated concreteness, which according to Pierre
Bourdieu, are characteristic of the distinctive elite taste (Bourdieu 1984: 292–94).
Another significant expression of this change is also evident in the food itself. For
example, Western desserts perceived as sophisticated and luxurious have begun to
appear on the menu. Desserts that were previously conceived as Chinese,20 such as
“fruit salad with canned lychee” and “fried banana,” have given way to “chocolate
soufflé with ginger” or “coconut crème brûlée.”
236
These three kinds of transformation—re-authentication, hybridization and re-

differentiation—resulted in the displacement of cultural elements of national
otherness or of Americanization, which had been prominent in the past.21 In this
way, the postmodern Chinese food of the twenty-first century has differentiated
itself from its earlier versions—the staged authentic Chinese food of the 1980s and
the American-Chinese fast food of the 1990s.
While previous versions of Chinese food expressed connections with
representations of other national and American influences, the newest form of
Chinese food joins the series of cultural objects that make up the modern
cosmopolitan consumption experience, which expresses openness to cultural
diversity, fashion, health, wealth and prestige.22 In this postmodern version, Chinese
food represents a new Israeli identity, which includes these cosmopolitan hybrid
elements. This identity demonstrates the acceptance of “otherness” and
“differentness,” which has become the norm among those with higher socio-
economic status and education levels in Israel, as a politically correct marker of
openness to other cultures and cultural experiences. From the perspective of the
Israeli elite, the whole world has become a cultural arena itself and not a battery
of separate “national cultures.” To borrow from Bauman’s terminology, what
Chinese food represents now in Israel is “fluid authenticity,” i.e. an entity lacking
“authenticity” in its essence, placed under various flows of discourse aiming to
dismantle and melt any seemingly fixed form (Bauman 2000: 1–13).
Discussion
Since the 1970s, Israel’s culinary culture has undergone a revolution. This has
included, among other things, the arrival of Chinese food at the “Israeli table,” and
the evolution of its character and status, as discussed in the present article. The
following contrasting excerpts from food journalists illustrate this change. In the
first, from 1970, Amos Kenan complains about the difficulty inherent in publishing
Chinese recipes in Israel:
It’s very hard to pretend to publish Chinese recipes [in Israel] … the ingredients
and spices are not available. Where will you get black mushrooms, soy sprouts,
bamboo shoots, Chinese noodles and lychee? In cities worldwide one can find
shops where one can get all of this [and in Israel they cannot be obtained].
(Kenan 1970: 124)
In the second excerpt, from twenty-six years later, Ron Maiberg bemoans the deluge
of East Asian foods in Israel:
This year, food importers threw at us unreasonable quantities of foodstuff, and

Food,
Culture
Society
& new ethnic cuisines were added to our food repertoire. Now we have a Thai
restaurant with the scent of Chinese, Vietnamese accents and a wink that is
volume 16 almost a muscle spasm of Japanese cuisine, i.e. an ugly border incident in
issue 2 South-East Asia in which we are the casualties. There is wonderful Thai cooking
june 2013 and fascinating Vietnamese cuisine, regional Chinese cuisine and dim sum that
237
is like mother’s dumplings from Beijing, and there is sashimi and sushi and
teppanyaki and yakitori, and a restaurateur who is pretentious enough to serve
all those together should be hospitalized for a split personality. (Maiberg 1996:
92–3)
It is clear that significant changes in Israel’s eating culture have taken place since
the 1970s. Food, in all its variety, became a prominent feature of recreation and
leisure culture, and Israeli culture as a whole. One such expression of this
development can be observed in the architectural changes that took place in the
home kitchen of the typical Israeli apartment, as it transformed from a small side
room to a space integrated into the central area of the house (the former living
room) (Kolan 2006). Dining out is of course another such expression, and one
element of it—eating Chinese food—has been the subject of the present article.
Chinese food played a significant role in changing the culinary culture. This change
was in turn influenced by the internal and external events experienced by Israeli
society, politically, socially and culturally, and especially the impact of globalization
in Israel (Ram 2007a).
This article has described how everyday cultural objects, such as the food
served in restaurants, reflect major social trends, and are designed in their
context. Based on this case study, we suggest that the prevalent concept of
globalization in Israel must be reworked. Globalization is commonly equated with
Americanization, but this article has shown that globalization in Israel has
additional meanings, beyond the influences of American culture on the Israeli
culture. Globalization in Israel is actually a multi-dimensional process, expressed
by the inclusion of different components from different cultures into Israeli culture
(in our case study, Israeli culinary culture), including also—but not exclusively—
American culture. We showed that the patterns of ethnic cultures, on the one hand,
and cosmopolitanism on the other hand, follow American patterns in globalization
processes.
Using the case of Chinese food, one might liken cultural globalization in Israel
to a play of three acts. In the first act, nationality was the main actor. The initial
culinary openness to “outside Israel,” in the 1980s, was expressed in national-
authentic culinary representations, although these were heavily staged. In the
second act, during the 1990s, the symbolic authenticity was diluted by the
production, distribution and consumption patterns of American fast-food chains. On
both symbolic and practical levels, Chinese food in Israel went through a process
of McDonaldization as part of the extensive Americanization taking place in Israel
at the time. During the third act, which started at the beginning of the twenty-first
century, the Chinese culinary culture became a hybrid of national, East-Asian and
Western cuisines, intended for the refined taste of social classes that seek to
differentiate themselves through conspicuous consumption. As we have shown,
Chinese food has been de-ethnicized through its expropriation from a single
national or ethnic identity, then re-authenticated through ascription to original
ingredients and production methods, all while experiencing re-differentiation to
place it in a Western urban-consumer package.
238
Chinese food in Israel therefore illustrates a transition from the representation

of staged national ethnicity consumed by the bourgeoisie as authentically exotic,
through the stage of standardized production and popular fast-food consumption,
à la McDonald’s, to the current phase of hybrid cosmopolitan consumption.23 In
this manner, Chinese food mirrors some of the cultural changes that have taken
place in recent decades in Israel.
By way of conclusion, it would be appropriate to co-opt the words of Confucius:
“After all—the way in which you are accustomed to cut your Chinese food reflects
your way of life.”
Rafi Grosglik is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He holds a master’s degree in sociology and
anthropology. Since 2008, he has been researching the cultural field of organic food in
Israel. His dissertation deals with the cultural globalization and sociology of Israeli
culinary culture. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel (rafig@post.bgu.ac.il).
Uri Ram is a professor of sociology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and former
Chair of its Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He gained his PhD from the New
School for Social Research. He is a co-founder and a board member of the Adva Center
for the Study of Inequality, and has been the Head of the Humphrey Institute for Social
Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
(uriram@bgu.ac.il).
Notes
1 A clear expression of the efficiency of using food in explaining societal processes is the
widespread use of concepts and metaphors from the food and catering field in literature
devoted to the study of globalization. For example: McDonaldization (Ritzer 1995), Coca-
colonization (Kuisel 1993; Ram 2007b) and Starbuckization (Ritzer, 2008: 211–32).
2 For further information about cultural Japanization, see: Befu and Guichard-Anguis (2001);
Lukacs (2010).
3 There are tea and rice in China,
The remote land;
And our country has a heatwave,
All kinds of fever.
(Words—Avraham Shlonsky, 1922 translated by the authors)
We thank Professor Yitzhak Shichor from the Department of Asian Studies at Haifa
Food, University, who drew our attention to the song and its meaning in Israeli culture.
Culture
Society
& 4 Studies on changes in patterns of cultural activity in Israel from 1970 to 1990 show that
frequenting restaurants and bars shifted from a marginal cultural activity to a widespread
volume 16 one (Katz et al., 2000: 211; 422; Haaz 1999).
issue 2 5 Interview with Yisrael Aharoni, chef and culinary celebrity in Israel, Tel Aviv, December 19,
june 2013 2006.
239
6 Ibid.
7 For a similar description of culinary ingredient appropriation from ethnic cultures and
their adaptation see Gvion and Trostler (2008).
8 The data regarding the scope of the book sales are based on an assessment by Sirkis and
given in a telephone interview, December 30, 2008.
9 Interview with Yisrael Aharoni, chef and culinary celebrity in Israel, Tel Aviv, December 19,
2006.
10 Chinese meal structure is built on combinations of flavors and dishes based on the
contrasts, according to the philosophical principle of Yin and Yang: a warm dish will be
served after a cold dish, hard textured raw ingredients will be prepared with soft
ingredients, a sour taste will be followed by a sweet taste, and so on. Serving a sweet
dish at the end of the meal is not customary. For a comprehensive historical overview
about the eating culture in China, see Anderson (1988).
11 Interview with Yisrael Aharoni, chef and culinary celebrity in Israel, Tel Aviv, December 19,
2006.
12 Ibid.
13 For details about the globalization of fast-food chains and the ways they are interwoven
in different places around the world, see, for example Watson (1997); Ohnuki-Tierney
(1999); Ram (2004)
14 Interview with Jug Lim, manager of the Jade-Palace restaurant, Beer-Sheva, May 21, 2006.
15 Interview with Leon Alkalay, chef at the Giraffe restaurant chain, Tel Aviv, November 1,
2006.
16 Interview with Daniel Rogov, restaurant and wine critic, Tel Aviv, September 27, 2006.
17 Interview with Yisrael Aharoni, chef and culinary celebrity in Israel, Tel Aviv, December 19
2006.
18 Interview with Shay Levy, manager of the Peking restaurant, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, September
4, 2008.
19 It should be noted that the geographical reference provided for many of the dishes served
in hybrid restaurants is not necessarily accurate and in some cases it is completely
invented. An illustration of this can be seen on the menu of the Giraffe restaurant which
describes gyoza as Japanese. In fact this is a literal translation into Japanese of the
Chinese jiǎozi. Another example can be seen in the following statement by Avi Conforti,
the chef of the Tzepra restaurant in Tel Aviv: “I offer seven types of Sashimi, one of them
is a Bengali sashimi. There really is no Bengali sashimi, but in my restaurant—there is”
(Sanders-Torino 2007).
20 The “Chineseness” of these desserts is, of course, imagined or staged as desserts or sweet
dishes are not commonly the final dish in traditional meals in China.
21 Similar changes in the status of Chinese food also occurred elsewhere in the world. For
example, entrepreneurs in Norway identified a demand for hybrid representation and
using a marketing strategy they called “marketing from the Far East without chop suey and
without dragons,” sparked a renewed interest in Chinese restaurants (Krogstad 2004).
Reproducing Chinese food is a widespread trend in contemporary global culture which
essentially adopts means of expression and diverse aesthetic styles from around the
world, and is inspired by global fashion trends and the patterns and images of stylistic
innovation. Sociologist Motti Regev conceptualizes this cultural situation as “aesthetic
cosmopolitanism” (Regev 2007, 2011).
22 For further details on the characteristics of cosmopolitan culture and the leisure
240
consumption experience see for example Warde et al. (1999); Brooks (2000); Warde (2000)
and Ollivier (2008).
23 It should be noted that this complex process is not unique to Chinese food. For example,
in Israel the falafel also contains these three moments: it has the national dimension (as
a representation of Israeliness, borrowed from representation of Arabness); it has the
dimension of standard food for quick consumption, as demonstrated by chains operating
in the 1990s and being recently renewed (and subsequently canceled) in McDonald’s
restaurants; and it has the dimension of refined cosmopolitan food, as marketed for
example in the Falafel Queens stand (for further details, see Ram 2005: 112–17).
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Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid

Rafi Grosglik & Uri Ram

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Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

diversity of tastes that oppose American standardization (Warde 2000: 311).

“Original Chinese”: The 1970s and 1980s

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

In the 1980s, an abnormal situation developed in Tel Aviv: dozens of Chinese

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

which can be packed as take-out. Chinese meals, packed in cardboard boxes

associated with gourmet restaurants, became readily available to the masses,

The “Pikanti method,” it turns out, is consistent with the principles of

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

In Israel—all Chinese food is “stir-fried” [mokpatz in Hebrew]. The most

Chinese restaurants, which a decade previously operated as fine restaurants, also

homogeneous industrial configuration. In this manner, symbolic heterogeneity exists

“Hybrid Chinese”: The 2000s

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

below, integrating cultural representations creates a mosaic of identities and

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

kinds of dishes prepared according to East Asian cooking methods, or served in a

These three kinds of transformation—re-authentication, hybridization and re-

This year, food importers threw at us unreasonable quantities of foodstuff, and

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

Chinese food in Israel therefore illustrates a transition from the representation

Rafi Grosglik is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology,

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram ◊ Chinese Food in Israel

Goldstein-Gideoni, O. 2003. “Japan is here?”—”Japan” as a Cultural Alternative in Israel of the

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