THE NEW
SALSA
HUFFINGTON
06.30-07.07.13
AP PHOTO/BRENNAN LINSLEY
Shmulik
Nahmias
prepares
a plate of
hummus
at Rahmo,
a popular
hummusia
in the
Mahane
Yehuda
market in
Jerusalem,
Israel.
Abu Hassan, a bare-tabled hummus den in the seaside town of
Jaffa, where the staff starts serving early in the morning and shuts
down the shop after the pot runs
out, often in the early afternoon.
We wandered the narrow streets
of Jerusalem’s Old City, past the
pilgrims crowding into the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher, until we
reached a tiny hummus shrine
adorned with black-and-white pictures of people sharing a meal at
the shop sometime in the 1930s.
One day we drove to a city in
Palestine’s West Bank known for
its tahina factories and uprisings.
By law, Israelis are forbidden from
entering the Palestinian territories, except to travel to the Jewish settlements, but we felt that
no hummus pilgrimage would be
complete without a trip to Nablus.
At the checkpoint, an Arab cab
driver pulled over and said he
hoped, for our own sake, that we
wouldn’t enter the city in our Israeli rental car. We thanked him
and drove past the Israeli guards,
through the rounded hills studded
with olive trees. My father grew