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A culinary spin through Wadi Nisnas

Wadi Nisnas is more than a small Christian Arab neighborhood in the northern coastal city of Haifa -- it's a place full of culinary wonders. When I lived in Haifa seven years ago, I would make regular pilgrimages to Conditory Oriental for knafeh, a pastry of oozy goat cheese topped with crispy, bright orange noodles and rosewater syrup. Once, when I was at one of the neighborhood's most famous falafel shops, a Knesset member parked his car in the middle of the one-lane street in order to buy hummus. Honking ensued.

The tiny neighborhood, whose name means "mongoose valley" in Arabic, is home to many churches and a great deal of public art, and is the site of Haifa's annual winter Holiday of Holidays festival, a celebration of Hannukah, Christmas and Ramadan. During the rest of the year, however, the neighborhood is still a pleasant place for a stroll, especially for the hungry.

In the neighborhood's central market, you won't find purple carrots and the other gourmet oddities that appear in the markets of Tel Aviv. You will find all sorts of indigenous greens that feature in Arab cooking, including hubeizeh (mallow), olesh (chicory), mustard stems (apparently, you pickle them), green beet leaves, 10-centimeter-tall lentil sprouts and bags of cyclamen leaves for stuffing. Who knew you can eat cyclamen? Continue reading A culinary spin through Wadi Nisnas ...

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