If you stop someone on the street and ask what the most Israeli food is, you’ll probably hear one of the usual answers: falafel, hummus, maybe schnitzel in pita. Some might enthusiastically mention Sabich, others might launch into a nostalgic speech about Krembo or Bamba.
But if we really pause and think about what best represents Israeli identity on a plate—not as a myth, but in practice—the most honest and moving answer, in my view, lies in what many of us take for granted: the Israeli breakfast.
First, let’s bust a few myths.
Before we get there, let’s take a brief detour through the stops that made Israeli cuisine so beloved—both here and abroad.
Take falafel, for example. It’s as iconic in Tel Aviv as the Shalom Tower and has been considered Israel’s national dish since the 1950s. But its origins lie in Egypt, where it was first made as a vegetarian snack. Hummus too—beloved and widely embraced—first appeared in its familiar form as early as the 13th century and has long been a part of the broader culinary traditions of the Middle East, well before we returned here as a people.
Still, we adopted them. We embraced them. We tucked falafel into pita with pickles and fries, and we wrote songs about hummus. They became Israeli not because they began here—but because we made them our own. And that’s the point: they were adopted, not invented. A small but meaningful difference.
True Israeli pride: Foods that were born here
Some foods were genuinely created here. Take ptitim (Israeli couscous), for example—an Israeli invention from the austerity period, developed as a rice substitute when rice was unavailable. Or Bamba—the peanut snack that became nearly a national symbol, with its baby mascot embedded in every Israeli childhood. In recent years, Bamba has even made waves in the Western world, thanks to medical research showing that early exposure to it may reduce the risk of developing allergies.
Even the cherry tomatoes chopped into salads around the globe are a completely Israeli agricultural innovation—developed at the Hebrew University, with a proud Israeli passport.
All of these are Israeli success stories, born from necessity, shaped by passion, and infused with a healthy dose of creativity.
But which food truly wins?
All of this is wonderful. But when we ask what the most Israeli food really is—not the one we invented, and not the one we adopted, but the one that captures everything about being Israeli: multiculturalism, abundance, identity tension, and also simplicity—there’s no answer more complete than the Israeli breakfast.
It’s not just a meal. It’s an entire ritual where, with no hierarchy or order, kibbutz-style chopped salad meets Libyan shakshuka, Druze labneh, Arab tahini, Turkish bourekas, Ashkenazi herring, and black coffee strong enough to wake David Ben-Gurion.
It wasn’t born in the kitchen of a celebrity chef, but in the communal dining halls of the kibbutzim in the 1940s. From there, it made its way to Tel Aviv and into hotel breakfast buffets—becoming a source of national pride. Today, when tourists leave Israel, they speak of the hummus, the Carmel wines, and “that breakfast where we ate everything you can imagine.”
The Israeli breakfast
To sum up, the Israeli breakfast is also a symbol of local dynamics: it has no strict rules, it flows in constant dialogue between East and West, between health food, spices, and sweets. Nowhere else in the world will you find a meal that starts with cereal and ends with pita and shakshuka.
So what is the most Israeli food? Not the one that shouts the loudest. Not the one that came first. Not the one with the most colorful packaging or the one sold on every street corner. It’s the one that brings together everything we are—on a plate, every single morning.
