A Marzipan Museum? Who Knew?

September 13, 2006 - 10:56 PM by Allison

On a trip to the north, Harry discovered an unusual attraction. Yum.

It wasn’t on our original agenda for our trip but who can resist a visit to Israel’s very own Marzipan museum? Despite Ziva’s hatred for everything almond, we sure couldn’t, that’s for sure. I mean, I read that they had a life size Elvis made out of marzipan. No way was I going to miss out on that. We left Ramot on the Golan late Saturday afternoon and anxiously made our way for towards Kfar Tavor, a nice village next to the very biblical Mount Tavor. The Jezreel Valley apparently has the ideal climate to grow olives, grapes and almonds. Not suprisingly, Kfar Tavor produces olive oil, wine and marzipan. Upon purchasing our tickets we received a complimentary piece of marzipan and a small cup of almond juice. Ziv opted for lemonade, she HATES almonds. Have I mentioned that? We had a nice intro to how marzipan is made by a lovely young woman Nitzan and learned that while most of the world produces with an almond content of 30 percent, Kfar Tavor marzipan has between 45-65 percent! Can you believe it? The marzipan museum wasn’t a museum per se, but a gallery of marzipan art. Who knew there was a subculture of folks who mold marzipan? It’s definately bizarre. I kind of don’t get it. Anyway, I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying the museum.

The following two photos were my favorite sculptures. The first is of an Israeli family enjoying a nice bbq, the second is of one of my favorite places in the world, Jerusalem’s open air market, Mahane Yehuda.