Ethnic and professional identities are generally viewed as incongruent. While ethnic cooking is seen as a reproduction of unaltered native dishes, professional cooking raises anticipation of invented culinary novelties. This study asks why Palestinian chefs fail to reconfigure ethnicity as an invaluable asset that enables their restaurant to partake in the realm of haute dining in Israel. The reconfiguration of Palestinian culinary knowledge as sophisticated and up-to-date, I argue, challenges their clients’ expectations that Palestinian chefs will prioritize the ethnic component of their identity over the professional one. This vision of Palestinian restaurants prevents the chefs from mobilizing the growing curiosity for ethnic cuisines, as well as the nostalgia for dishes that have disappeared from domestic kitchens, keeping them from penetrating the realm of haute cuisine en route to upward mobility and professional autonomy.
Abu AsbahKAbu NasraMAbu-BakerK (2014)
Gender perceptions of male and female teachers in the Arab education system in Israel. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies10(3): 108–124.
2.
Abu-SaadI (2006)
State-controlled education and identity formation among the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. The American Behavioral Scientist49(8): 1085–2101.
3.
AmalJ (2007)
Nationalizing states and the constitution of “hollow citizenship”.Ethnopolitics6(4): 471–493.
4.
AvieliN (2018) Food and Power: A Culinary Ethnography of Israel.
Oakland, CA:
University of California Press.
5.
Ben EliezerU (2008)
Multicultural society and everyday cultural racism. Ethnic and Racial Studies33(5): 935–961.
6.
BennettTSavageMBortolaia SilvaE, et al. (2009) Culture, Class and Distinction.
New York, NY:
Routledge.
7.
Ben-Ze'evE (2004) The politics of taste and smell. In: LienMNerlichB (eds) The Politics of Food.
Oxford:
Berg, pp. 141–160.
8.
BisharaA (1993)
On the question of the Arab minority in Israel. Teoria Ubikoret3: 7–20 (Hebrew).
9.
BraytonSMillingtonB (2011)
Renovating ethnic identity on restaurant makeover. Social Identities17(2): 185–200.
10.
DeweyS (2012) Teaching modern India how to eat. In: RayKSrinivasT (eds) Curried Cultures.
Berkeley:
University of California Press, pp. 126–142.
11.
FerreroS (2002) Comida sin sar. Consumption of Mexican Food in Los Angeles. In: BelascoWScrantonP (eds) Food Nations.
New York, NY:
Routledge, pp. 194–219.
12.
GanemALevin-RozalisM (2014)
The identity dance. Megamot15(1): 2550 (Hebrew).
13.
GaytanMS (2008)
From sombreros to sincronizadas. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography37(3): 314–341.
14.
GirardelliD (2004)
Commodified identities. Journal of Communication Inquiry28(4): 307–324.
15.
GrosglikR (2011)
Organic hummus in Israel. Sociological Research Online16(2): 3.
16.
GrosglikRRamU (2015)
Authentic, speedy and hybrid. Food, Culture and Society16(2): 223–243.
17.
GvionL (2009)
Narrating modernity and tradition. Identities16(4): 391–413.
18.
GvionL (2014)
Tradition and resistance. Journal of Intercultural Studies35(4): 366–384.
19.
GvionL (2015)
Two narratives of Israeli food. Studies in Contemporary JewryXXXVIII: 126–141.
20.
GvionL (2018a)
Committed, grateful, and worthy of acceptance: Master Chef Israel and the social construction of immigration narratives. Qualitative Sociology41(4): 479–496.
HalabiR (2017)
Arab graduate students in teachers college in Israel. Megamot52(2): 169–190 (Hebrew).
23.
HarbonIAbu AsbahKAbu NasraM (2013)
Arab education in Israel. Israeli Sociology14(2): 289–2 (Hebrew).
24.
HighmoreB (2009)
The Taj Mahal in the high street. Food, Culture and Society12(2): 173–190.
25.
JabareenY (2006)
Law and education. The American Behavioral Scientist49(8): 1052–1074.
26.
JohnstonJBaumannS (2010) Foodies, Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape.
New York, NY:
Routledge.
27.
Kritzman-AmirTBarak-BiancoA (2017) Food as a means of control. In: GrossATiroshY (eds) Daily Bread.
Tel Aviv:
Tel Aviv University Press (Hebrew), pp. 597–638.
28.
LeonN (2008)
The secular origins of Mizrahi traditionalism. Israel Studies13(3): 22–42.
29.
LeviG (2005)
From subjects to citizens. Citizenship Studies9(3): 271–291.
30.
MizrachiNHerzogH (2012)
Participatory destigmatization strategies among Palestinians citizens, Ethiopian Jews and Mizrachi Jews in Israel. Ethnic and Racial Studies35(3): 418–435.
31.
MizrachiNZawduA (2012)
Between global racial and bounded identity. Ethnic and Racial Studies35(3): 436–452.
32.
NarayanU (1997) Dislocating Cultures.
New York, NY:
Routledge.
33.
PilcherJ (1998) Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity.
Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press.
34.
RabinowitzDAbu-BakerK (2002) The Stand Tall Generation.
Jerusalem:
Keter (Hebrew).
35.
RatnerD (2015)
Rap reggae and “the strollers’. Israeli Sociology17(1): 32–56.
36.
RayK (2012) Global flows, local bodies. In: RayKSrinivasT (eds) Curried Cultures.
Berkeley:
University of California Press, pp. 175–195.
37.
RayK (2016) The Ethnic Restaurateur.
London:
Bloomsbury.
38.
RayKSrinivasT (eds) (2012) Curried Cultures.
Berkeley:
University of California Press.
39.
SabarGPosnerR (2013)
Remembering the past and constructing the future over a communal plate. Food Culture and Society16(2): 197–223.
40.
ShenhavYHeverH (2012) ‘
Arab Jews’ after structuralism. Social Identities18 (1): 101–118.
41.
SimmelG (1950) The stranger. In: WolffKH (ed.) The Sociology of Georg Simmel.
New York, NY:
Free Press, pp. 402–408.
42.
WalkerM (2013)
Border food and food on the border. Social and Cultural Geography14(6): 649–667.
