Our highlight breakfast was during our stay in the Bedouin Campsite (see - SEE & DO). There were no cooking facilities at the camp-site, so we had the chance to eat in a private home on a MOSHAV community nearby. This particular wonderful family host meals to make a little extra money. Our desert guides, Gil and Ziv had made this connection for us.
Although the Moshav’s were traditional community collectives, life even here on Moshav’s have changed to be no different from any other western style house with lots of everyday clutter. This wasn’t at all a touristic experience - just a real, working class house lived in by salt of the earth people. Although the kids initially felt uncomfortable going into a strangers home, our warm hostess, Dalia did everything to make us feel at home.
In a typically Jewish household, mothers are famous for wanting to feed everyone, so this was a slice of real life because breakfast for five never stopped! A table full of delicious, home cooked food lay on offer. The food was piled high with fluffy, scrambled eggs accompanied by the kind of crisp, simple salads that we all make at home. There were baskets of hot breads for the creamy dips, goat and sheep cheeses, and plenty of olives and pastries to nibble on. Then cakes, and fruit… and the offer to start all over again from the beginning if we were still hungry!!!!
After being on the road it was actually quite heart warming to eat around a real table, welcomed as if we were relatives. I recommend these kind of in-home experiences as the perfect balance for the dusty, rugged adventure of the jeep rides and tents. It was also fascinating to get up close to the everyday citizens in this region, the best way to feel a sense of time and place, rather than just read about it in an abstract way.
We had our first taste of Bedouin hospitality before we even embarked on our desert jeep ride and headed to our official Bedouin camp stay. As we drove south out of Be’er Sheva, our guide for this first leg of the journey, David took us to a Bedouin camp near DIMONA, the third largest city in the Negev Desert with a 3000-strong Black Hebrew community.
Although living in tents is in the Bedouin blood, many communities are now less nomadic and even stay put, so even though the surrounding landscape is the signature, parched, endless earth of the desert, in this case the land was not undeveloped. Inside a permanent Bedouin tent there is a strange mix of the temporary and enduring: alongside the moveable carpets and curtains that hang on wires (acting as walls), there are electrical cables that modernise and stabilize the tent.
Although this tent was nowhere near as rustic as we expected, we still loved the authentic flavour of our meal and eating the ancient way - sitting on cushions and rugs, sitting down at a big copper tray covered with “abud” (bread) and goat’s milk cheese, passing each other savoury dips like Babaganoush, Tzaziki and beetroot puree, then dipping our fingers in bowls of water and lemon.
We then worked off our meal with an hour camel ride, to really embrace our Bedouin afternoon.
Our meals on the road in our 4WD jeep expedition across the Negev desert was not so much a ‘where’ as a ‘what’ to eat proposition. It was mandatory to be in experienced hands in such harsh terrain, and our guide, Ziv was amply prepared for lunch every day.
He brought along provisions like tinned tuna, canned corn beef, cold meats and salad ingredients to make up fresh for each meal. After hours in the jeep we stopped for our first morning tea break in a natural rocky alcove. Ziv put down oversized, woven mattings and a gas cylinder and burner to prepare hot tea and coffee.The boys were fascinated by the sweet, spicy smelling smoke of the traditional narghile tobacco, which they puffed away in the massive, exotic hookah pipes like old Arabic sages. That’s when I knew we had really arrived in the desert!
When I think of our jeep trek, it’s food that plays the most important part in my memories - stopping under the shade of a tree, setting out a temporary mat and creating our next meal from scratch. I have wonderful mental snapshots of the boys sitting with my mother as she peeled cucumbers, chopped tomatoes and dry cabonossi sausages to toss amongst the fresh rocket.
There is something about eating outdoors and bringing your own provisions on your back - or in this case jeep - that really connects you. Your appetite is sharper and in a remote, empty land a fresh lime or lemon is the ultimate luxury.
I have never needed a fancy restaurant to enjoy a great meal at the best of times, so I was thrilled to see how eating on the go like this really suited three generations of the Said’s. Our picnic lunches, all self created, was one of the highlights of our journey.
When we had our overnight stay in small desert town, MItzpe Ramon before embarking on our jeep journey, we were pleasantly surprised not only by the comforts, health club and pool facilities - which could keep guests happy for much longer than our one night pitstop - but by the plentiful, quality food.
The dining room is the buzzy, social hub of the hotel where all 3 meals of the day are served - buffet style. There was every type of Israeli and non-Israeli food imaginable, from Moroccan and Middle Eastern cuisine with pita bread made right on the spot, to Eastern European and Asian, with an ever-changing selection each night. The dinner menu also has the unique, homespun touch of a family recipe or two.
We’re not usually buffet people that look for quantity - we tend to be light, healthy eaters - but the Ramon Inn’s array of food, including dessert, was as beautifully presented as any à la carte dish. The kitchen did not drop the standard of food one iota because it was presented on a large scale, with classic buffet variety. And what kid doesn’t love the instant gratification of choosing your own food on sight…
Family dinner at the Ramon Inn was one of our most delicious, satisfying dining experiences not only on this trip, but in all of Israel. Only later did I discover that the restaurant is considered a highlight for those traveling between the Dead Sea and the far south, down at the port of Eilat.
Our guide, Ziv took us to another hallmark of rural life in Israel, a small collective community, or “moshav,” called Neot Hakikar where one restaurant, Yossi’s Place serves the whole town. It had a simple, no frills, communal atmosphere where you could just eat like a local - as a traveler, not a tourist. I loved stretching my legs at the long tables, dipping my chunks of pita into the hummus and snapping open a soft drink to quench my desert thirst. Sometimes it’s nice to eat casually instead of making every meal an occasion…
There is a variety of earthy dining in Moshav’s around the country, from strictly vegetarian or kosher, to seafood and Mediterranean cuisine - always hearty, never fancy; just the way hungry travelers would have eaten in biblical times. There is something about the scorched earth and throwback conditions of the Negev that made me seek out old-school, down-to-earth dining.
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