Falafel

I have just been to the library and got out the Book of English Food by the rather splendidly named Arabella Boxer. It's about how and what the British ate between the wars, which is what interested me about it, that social history angle, although I am also on the lookout for good cake recipes since the appearance of cake tins in the kitchen following the birth of my sweet tooth.

But I mainly got it out for Miles, who likes traditional things. It has a whole chapter on Tea, in the sandwiches and buns sense of the word, and another one on Picnics. And I am sure he will look at recipes for Roast Rack of Lamb and Braised Oxtail and wonder how he ever ended up living with a vegetarian.

And indeed it would have been very difficult to be a vegetarian living in Britain between the wars. Not least (as I finally get to the point) because there was no falafel. And falafel is the food of the gods.

I can remember my first falafel. It was my first visit to Israel in 1980, also memorable for my first experiences of houmous, pitta bread, tahina, sunflower seeds, and Kinley, a fizzy orange drink made by the Coca Cola Company which I have never seen anywhere else in the world but which was bloody wonderful. These days you can buy falafel in supermarkets, but in those days you could only get it in the Middle East, and maybe in Middle Eastern delis, and we didn't have any of those where I grew up.

And it was like being shown a secret door into heaven. My sister, my dad and I took to hanging round the bus station at Haifa, where stalls would sell you a pitta bread with four or five hot little balls in it and you would fill the rest of the space up with five different kinds of olive, fourteen different kinds of pickle, some salad, some tahina and some chilli sauce. You would eat it far too fast and then do it again, until you felt sick.

Is there a more perfect food? Good for you, vegetarian, nay, vegan, super tasty, and you can do whatever you like with it. It's so wonderful that people fight over who thought of it first. I don't mind, just bring it on. I do have access to a Middle Eastern deli these days and very glad I am too.


joella