12/11/93

Culture Shuk

Six of the biggest names in American gastronomy came to cook up a charity banquet ג€“ and tour the Jerusalem juggernaut.

By: Sam Orbaum

    Jean-Louis Palladin, meet Yitzhak Ohana.
    Palladin is the best chef in America, Ohana is a fishmonger in the Mahane Yehuda shuk, and for a couple of minutes one day recently the twain met, with nothing in common between them but a heap of dead mullets.
    Nobody had ever given our little fishman such exalted homage as when Palladin's entourage of celebrated chefs stopped to chat. The visitors were in the midst of a barnstorming tour of Israel, eating, cooking and joking their way through an itinerary dieters dream of.
    They came here not to learn Ohana's gutting techniques, but with a nobler cause in mind - to lend their lure for the benefit of local charities. The Tel Aviv Sheraton and Jerusalem's Sheraton-Plaza and Tower Air brought them to sweat over a hot stove for two $100-a-plate wingdings, with all proceeds going to a child-abuse unit at Hadassah Hospital and for a natural childbirth unit at Sheba Hospital.
    Before they got down to rolling up their sleeves, the chefs put in a little sightseeing.
Like most tourists they went to see the holy sites, dip in the Dead Sea, tour Masada, Yad Vashem and Hadassah Hospital-Ein Karem, and paint Tel Aviv red.
    Unlike most tourists, they threw themselves into the crush of Friday afternoon shuk shopping, inspected a factory that force-feeds goose livers into tiny tins, and got invited to a traditional Sephardi Jerusalem Shabbat dinner at Mrs. Cohen's house over on Rahel Imenu Street.

THE CHEFMOBILE arrived on the outskirts of the shuk, its doors opened, and out jumped seven men in bright white uniforms. No one noticed. Nearby, some guy was giving out municipal election flyers. Everyone noticed.
    Welcome to Mahane Yehuda.
    Their first whiff of the Eternal City was of the vehicle directly behind theirs, a reeking garbage truck that seemed to symbolize an earthy dig at their profession.
    These were seven men with a mission: to get to the other side of the shuk, where lunch would be served. They could not fail, because it is a law that chefs do not go hungry.
Leading the charge was Shalom Kadosh, executive chef of the Sheraton Jerusalem, who can dice an onion with the best of them. Wouterus Lap, Big Cheese in the kitchen of the Sheraton Tel Aviv, assumed the task of herding the guests through the jostle.
    Amcha, meet Todd English.
    From the candy hawker at the beginning of the market's main drag, right through to the humous vendor at the end, everyone seemed to know Kadosh, greeting him like he was a campaigning candidate for mayor. As for the rest of the entourage, however, they might just as well have been assistant hamburger flippers at McDonald's.
    The chefs seemed unprepared for the phenomenon of the shuk. The assault of aromas, the cacophony of hollering vendors, the colors, the frenzy. Packed like human sardines into this Jerusalem juggernaut, they plunged in with unrestrained glee.
    "Three for a shekel! Three for a shekel! Plus one free if you vote for Olmert! Yalla, yalla!"
    Palladin stopped at a display of persimmons. "Nice with foie gras," he said.
    Drew Nieporent asked him how he made gefilte fish. Palladin didn't know what it was. "You know, quennelles de broche."
    Roberto Donna couldn't believe the size of our radishes.
    At the next stall, a luscious display of glistening greens ruffled one cool demeanor. "Beautiful, oh God!"
    Somebody plucked a kohlrabi and fondled it.
    In the spice store they were like kids in a candy store, agog at the little hills of pastel powder, nothing packaged, nothing labeled. They peppered Kadosh with questions about some of the more exotic ones. "What's the burgundy one?" "Sumac." (A couple of days later, Kadosh served them a lunch that featured chicken in sumac sauce. )
    Nieporent wrinkled his nose. "I smell cinnamon. I hate cinnamon." They moved on.
They kept stopping at fish counters, stroking the silvery scales and engaging in talmudic disputes about how to prepare this one or that. They came upon a crate of bug-eyed fish heads. Palladin jabbed a thumb. "Soup."
    "Jeez, would you look at the selection of olives!"
    For Todd English, it was the selection of women.
    None of the chefs had ever seen fresh guava before. Palladin had never seen haredim before, and he was unabashedly curious about two little boys with peyot buying lemons.
    Pintabona was enraptured. "The only thing in New York close to this place is La Marketa in Spanish Harlem." He said Mahane Yehuda reminded him of markets in Vietnam and Thailand. Donna compared it to one he'd seen in Hong Kong, with a difference: no snakes. For Nieporent, this was deja vu. He'd strolled through Mahane Yehuda on a visit many years ago. It was a trip down memory lane for Michael Ginor, who used to be a "shukie" when he was a student at the Hebrew University.

SHIPUDEI HAGEFEN introduced the chefs to some strange and unusual foods. Like ketchup. Yup, they really did put the Chef's Insult on the table.
    They ripped through mounds of Iraqi pita, methodically khlopping down the mezza, a long row of bowls filled with Middle Eastern specialties. Then the waiter ceremoniously presented a plate of that most exalted exotica, felafel. Everyone took one ball. They contemplated it, sniffed its bouquet, autopsied it, introduced it to their taste buds, paused, appraised the melange of gastronomic secrets, nodded sagely as it slid down their throats. "Good," pronounced English.
    Then came a plate of chips. This they recognized - "patates," said Nieporent.
    Palladin seemed to be eating with extra urgency. We soon found out why. "Do we not eat on Shabbat?" he asked morosely.
    "Whaddaya mean, not eat?" Ginor howled, "are you crazy?!"
    Conversation moved to more familiar ground: Washington dining habits, and inevitably, transplanted Arkansas ones. Palladin made a face. "Clinton doesn't know shit about food." It seemed that that was reason enough not to vote for him.
    Spits of meat were brought to the table.
    "Beef," said the waiter.
    "Yeah!"
    "And this is chicken."
    "Yeah!"
    "And biz."
    "Biz?"
    Udder, they were told. "Sure, why not?" They were hungry, nebich.
    "Balls."
    "Excuse me?"
    "Bull's balls."
    They reacted like they'd just been goosed. It was that the little unmentionables had been impaled that grossed them out the most. The more daring gave them a whirl. Palladin asked for seconds. Then thirds. All told, he emasculated five and a half bulls. His colleagues watched him with fascinated disgust. "You know what's unbelievable?" Nieporent said. "Truffles aren't kosher, but this is!"
    Someone asked Palladin if he'd ever served bovine scrotum. He adjusted his eyeglasses and pondered the question academically. "Yes," he said slowly, "I called it 'white kidney.' Hey, I wasn't lying too much."

THEY SKIPPED dessert, ignored the bill, didn't tip the waiter, and plunged back into the shuk for a last farewell.
    Arraying themselves behind an onion stall, they chimed in with the chant, seven men in natty white uniforms shouting "shekel, shekel!" It sounded, actually, as if they were selling money, and maybe that's why, finally, everyone noticed them. Everybody came running to Simhoni's onion stall to gawk at the sight, outlandish even for Mahane Yehuda.
    Then, suddenly, the shuk transformed. The throngs swiftly thinned to mere stragglers, the hawkers' chants became more urgent (and, as Hebrew-speaking Ginor would have noticed, cheaper), and suddenly it was not the sights but the sounds that were most apparent.
    A haredi marched through blowing a razzy tin horn, announcing it was time to vamoose home for Shabbat. Last-minute high-decibel haggling replaced the dull roar. Metal shutters clanged shut. It was like a scene out of a spaghetti western when the bad guys ride into town.
    As the chefs left, Palladin grinned. "Fantastic," he said.
    Roberto Donna tried to sum up the experience. "You know, it shows the love of the people for food. They really care about what they feed their family."
    Then it was off to the five-star carpeted luxury of the Sheraton Jerusalem.

(BOX 1)

GOTCHA!

Drew Nieporent came up with a great new recipe during the Big Cook in the Jerusalem Sheraton kitchen: Take one egg. Put egg on Jean-Louis Palladin's face.
    The first-class practical joke began when Marty Siegmeister of Safed read in The Jerusalem Post that Nieporent was coming to Israel with a contingent of chefs. The two had studied hotel management at Cornell University 16 years ago.
    Siegmeister, who is now haredi, traveled to Jerusalem to see his old friend.   Nieporent took note of the peyot and long scraggly beard, and had an idea.
    Palladin was arranging a row of little pink fish when Siegmeister approached him. "Are you in charge of these fish?"
    The two-star Michelin chef stood up. "Yes," he said warily. He had been extremely nervous about kashrut, which he had only learned about on the flight a few days earlier. He was constantly worried that "the rabbi" (the kashrut supervisor) was watching him.
    Siegmeister examined the food up close. "Hmm. I just don't know. It doesn't look, uh, spiritually right." He stroked his beard, looking deeply concerned. "Tell me, have you been in contact with Arabs recently?"
    Palladin blanched. He had just returned from a visit to the Arab shuk. "Er, yes ..."
    Siegmeister shook his head. "Like I thought. It's tainted. I'm sorry, you'll have to throw it all out."
    Palladin was speechless. (He recounted later the thought going through his mind: "Oh, shit, I've started another Arab-Israeli war!") Only after a few agonizing moments did Palladin realize he'd been had. The kitchen exploded in hysterics as he fled.
    The hapless chef then proceeded to pour oil on the fire of his embarrassment. He returned moments later wearing a keffiyeh he'd just bought in the shuk, and the laughter hit a crescendo.
    But just when he thought he'd had the last laugh, the real "rabbi" walked in, not at all amused.

(BOX 2)

The Men in White

    Roberto Donna looks like you'd think a chef should look like. He's tubby. With his singsong Italian accent and warm humor he sounds right, too.
    Donna charged to the top of his profession in no time at all. Born in Asti, Italy, he began working in restaurants at the age of nine. At 13 he enrolled in a cooking school; at 17 he was already an executive chef in Torino; at 19 he got a job in Washington, DC; at 23 he opened his first restaurant, Galileo, in the capital; when he was 29, he was named one of the 10 best chefs in America; by now, age 32, he owns a pizzeria, fish market and bakery in addition to the Galileo.
    The critics have not been unkind to Donna: "Practically a national treasure," said The Washington Post. Galileo was said to "epitomize the power lunch" in Power City.
    Jean-Louis Palladin didn't go to America to "make it." When he emigrated from Gascony, France, he was already a two-star Michelin chef. This year's US Chef of the Year, his stature is so high that, as one of the entourage put it, contemporary American cuisine is divided into "pre-Palladin" and "post-Palladin."
    He is the most professorial of the visiting chefs, bespectacled, mustachioed and exacting, even when he's arranging a row of tomato slices. To watch him, cooking looks like art, science and romance all at once. Even when, at Mahane Yehuda, he was tasting a lowly felafel ball for the first time, he contemplated its composition and taste with profound academic respect.
    He terms his style "Instinctive Cuisine," based on classical techniques and a mixture of intuition and innovation - but most important, using only the freshest ingredients.
    His restaurant, Jean Louis at the Watergate, is a culinary landmark in the capital. One meal, and you'll forget Nixon was ever there.

DON PINTABONA does not cut an imposing figure: he's of average height, average build, average looks with a less-than-average attempt at a beard. But can this man cook!
    Following his graduation from the Culinary Institute of America in 1982, he traveled through much of the world on a mission to discover his culinary self. The result: a distinctive style combining American fare with trans-European expertise and Asian influences.
    Pintabona's talents helped make the blockbuster Tribeca restaurant a New York hotspot with the Uppermost Class.
    Next time you're in New York, turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper or magazine: Pintabona may well be there, getting the sort of media attention reserved for the very above-average.
    Drew Nieporent could be one of the great Jewish restaurateurs of America, if he were Jewish. He doesn't look like such a Gentile, and bounded about with such folksy familiarity that two kitchen workers asked me if he is "one of ours."
    He's the sort of fellow you have to like, an embarrassment to the credo that nice guys finish last. He is truly top of his profession, as reflected by the rave respect of his restaurants: Tribeca Grill, which he co-owns with actor Robert DeNiro, was named one of the 50 best restaurants in America two years in a row; Montrachet is one of only three restaurants awarded four stars by Wine Spectator magazine and was inducted in another trade magazine's Hall of Fame; and in the last two years he opened Della Femina and East Hampton Point to critical acclaim.
    Nieporent, not yet 40 years old, is listed in the Who's Who of Cooking in America.
    Even if he's not Jewish, some of his best friends are: he proudly revealed that he has several Israeli partners, which is why he spearheaded this five-chefs' tour, "to see where they're coming from."
    Todd English in four words: cooks good, looks good. With his matinee-idol features, he could be on a movie set instead of in a kitchen. But he chose to break eggs instead of hearts, and Boston eats better for it.
    Voted "Rising Star Chef of the Year" by his confreres, English is not much more than 30 years old, and has a gastronomic philosophy fit for his generation: he believes in healthy and affordable dining.
    His Beantown eatery, Olives, is aptly named for it reflects the Mediterranean fare that has become his trademark. (His own name does not reflect his ancestry: though born in Texas, English is of Italian stock. )
    Michael Ginor has had a career mix of the unlikeliest ingredients: food, investment banking and Zionism. He was born in the US, made aliya as a child, returned to America after six years, studied at Brandeis, New York University and here at the Hebrew University, then spent four years on Wall Street.
    Ginor came back to pursue a career in the IDF, serving as a captain in the Gaza Strip, as a patrol commander and the IDF spokesman in the Strip.
    He then decided knives had a more peaceful purpose, and went culinary. He founded Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the largest producer of foie gras in the US. He has worked as a guest chef in London, Bangkok and Hong Kong, where his fluent Hebrew rarely was needed.