The Evolution of the Israeli Kitchen

Nowadays, the orange is a well-known symbol of Israel. But in the 1920s oranges were curiously absent from local Jewish recipe books, even though the orange groves planted in Palestine a few years earlier flooded the market with oranges. Apparently, oranges were considered anti-Zionist: Gardeners were entrepreneurs at a time when private enterprise was considered an anti-national act. This began to change in the mid-1930s. With the Great Revolt of local Arabs, and the Arab general strike in Mandatory Palestine on one side, and the winds of war in Europe significantly reducing the export of citrus fruits on the other, someone had to eat all those oranges! With this increased pressure to buy local produce, scientists got involved in propaganda and the Jewish settlement started to eat oranges. The image of the orange soon changed; it no longer represented luxury, snobbery, and capitalism (which was considered a dirty word), but rather came to symbolize health and Zionist initiative.