The Israeli abroad
Filed under: Food, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Pop Culture
It’s the season of our annual sojourn to the States, and as always, I’m surprised by how Israeli I feel when I’m here, despite this being my native homeland.
It’s often the little things, like meeting other Israelis in unexpected places, or seeing signs of home — this time, it was the Hebrew Coca-Cola sign featured prominently at the Atlanta Coca-Cola Museum — in particular places.
Our location for the next while, Camp Ramah Darom in the hills of Georgia, is a place that includes many Israelis on staff as part of the mishlachat, the Israeli envoy team that comes to bring the taste of Israel to Jewish summer camps. And they do, teaching Hebrew to the kids, as well as running many of the activities at camp. They’re always shocked to find out that I also live in Israel, given my more American appearance and, sigh, American accent in Hebrew that will never disappear.
Still, we’re bonded by where we live, as we spend some weeks in a place that couldn’t be more different than Israel. What we don’t have in common, these native Israelis and I, is the kind of coffee we drink. I feel lucky to be spending time in a place that has true brewed American coffee every morning, and I like to drink lots of it. It’s not that great, honestly, and after 16 years in Israel, I much prefer my hafuchs, hot and strong. But brewed coffee is such an American concept, and I can appreciate my endless cup. Not, however, my fellow country people who are lucky enough to be in a place that imported Elite instant coffee just for them.
Israelis have some kind of crazy love for instant coffee, whether it’s the Elite brand, or Nescafe. That’s what they want to drink in most places, whether at home or far off and abroad.
So that’s what they’re drinking at camp, while I enjoy my most-probably Maxwell House. Still, it’s a sign of home each time I refill my mug, and I welcome it. Finally, to truly understand the Israeli affection for instant coffee, watch this:
Cow chocolate
Filed under: Art, design, Entertainment, Food, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, tv
This one comes by way of a friend who works at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive at Hebrew University, and clearly gets some time at work to chuckle and guffaw at vintage reels.
In this Elite commercial circa the late 1950s, I would guess, the ‘shmartaf‘ — the then word for babysitter (which means children-watcher), although, interestingly, you’ll also catch the word ‘babysitter’ used in the commercial, is tied up by the kids while the parents go out for an evening of theater. Why? To gorge themselves on Elite chocolate, the ‘cow’ chocolate so beloved by Israeli children for generations.
Funny, no? Although it’s hard to imagine gorging oneself on Elite chocolate these days, however beloved the ‘cow’ may have once been. These days, Elite is owned by Strauss, the dairy company, and they even provide 60% cocoa chocolate, which is pretty good when you’re desperate for the deep, dark stuff. To get a sense of what Strauss and Elite produce besides chocolates, check out the collage advertisement created for Strauss by Israeli artist Hanoch Piven.
Nostalgia Sunday – Old ads are more fun
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Movies, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
If we are to learn anything from Mad Men, it’s that advertisements are most fun and best viewed in retrospect. We look back in “What were they thinking?” wonderment at the positioning of certain products. For example, here’s a slideshow of Israeli advertisements from yesteryear – including one for Osem’s Bamba as a crispy late-night party snack – a far cry from it’s primary role today as the ultimate teething toy.
Or this one, for Elite powdered instant coffee. Although it employs a completely archaic production method, “Cafe Ness” is still being consumed happily by millions. Or thousands. Or at least by me.
Here’s something you don’t see every day – an advertisement for cigarettes! With actual smoking!
And to close, an ad featuring the Yarkon Bridge Trio (Shlishiyat Gesher HaYarkon) — Benny Amdursky, Yehoram Gaon and Arik Einstein racing around town and touting the wonders of Tadiran’s new-fangled electronic devices.
As you watch, bear this in mind: TV in Israel was black & white until 1980, broadcasting was limited to one commercial-free station until 1993 and ads were shown only in movie houses.
Safed coffee factory runs on coffee
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Environment, General, Technology
Coffee-inspired energy is only becoming increasingly fashionable. Back in June, a team at the University of Leeds experimented with the same process used for roasting coffee beans as a method of releasing energy from a host of other crops, including wheat straw and certain types of grasses. The study concluded that this method has the potential boost the energy output of biomass power by up to 20%.
But what about using coffee itself? The concept of using coffee to obtain energy is hardly a new one, and here in Israel, where new energy sources are always an especially welcome discovery, coffee – especially the iconic Elite-brand instant – is a way of life.
Recently, Strauss Elite’s 1956-inaugurated instant coffee plant in Safed implemented a series of green measures, at an estimated expenditure of NIS 10 million, Haaretz reports. The measures include extending the height of the mill’s smokestack and upgrading filtration systems, with estimated efficiency increases resulting from the measures expected to pay for themselves within four years. But perhaps the most remarkable measure is that now the factory uses coffee regs to power itself:
At the beginning of this week, large furnaces were installed to burn the coffee beans at high temperatures to create steam. According to Strauss vice president Pini Kamari, the move will cut the factory’s shale consumption in half.
“This creates a direct connection between being ‘green’ and being efficient,” Kamari explained. “Motivation for the change came from our desire to cut costs, reducing energy costs and transportation costs for both the shale and the waste. At the same time, emissions will be much lower, both from the smokestacks and from the trucks [formerly needed to bring in fuel]. We will create less waste and need to bury less garbage. Noise will also be reduced.”
Image of Israeli coffee beans courtesy gkamin from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Nostalgia Sunday – Powdered instant coffee
Filed under: Food, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
For those who don’t understand the billboards now plastered all over town, Elite has just relaunched their “Hot Water, Small Glass” campaign for its Turkish coffee. The ads feature a charming Israeli commercial airline pilot who travels the world requesting that various waiters, stewardesses, bedouin “zula” proprieters and other serving persons, bring him “hot water, small glass” so that he can mix up a cup of that brown colored swill so beloved here, popularly known as “botz”.
“Botz” means mud, so you see that even three and four generations ago, our forefathers understood this brew was not quality, to put it mildly. For those unable to stomach even the sight of botz — not to mention botz with milk — there was one other option: Elite powdered coffee.
That’s right, kids. Israel used to have only bad coffee. There were no Lavazza home espresso-makers, no Bodum cafetiers, no Chemexes or Melittas with paper filters — and even if there were, all there would be to put in them would have been ground up cardamom-flavored mystery beans. All we had, children, was bad bad bad coffee that came in a small tin.
Visitors from the US were asked to bring salvation in a jar that looked like this:
Eventually, good coffee came to Israel but visit any office kitchenette in this country and you’ll still see a small (or large) tin of Elite powdered coffee. Even I drink it – it tastes good to me now.
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