{"id":25974,"date":"2022-05-17T08:07:40","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T06:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilovefruitandvegfromeurope.com\/generously-contributed-by-our-food-writing-correspondent-marlena-spieler\/"},"modified":"2023-07-27T10:52:52","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T08:52:52","slug":"generously-contributed-by-our-food-writing-correspondent-marlena-spieler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ilovefruitandvegfromeurope.com\/en_ca\/generously-contributed-by-our-food-writing-correspondent-marlena-spieler\/","title":{"rendered":"Generously contributed by our food-writing correspondent Marlena Spieler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
You could call Sabich<\/strong> a fried eggplant sandwich, which it is at its heart: but it also has lots of other things, movable things: hard-boiled egg, salads, and condiments such as creamy sesame-seed tahini, fiery zhug or harissa, and amba, a bright yellow sauce of pickled mango and fenugreek. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Though an Israeli friend says that her favourite Sabich place refuses to let her omit the egg and she hates hard-boiled egg, so lets say: in theory you can vary the other ingredients). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes a few potato slices are added, sometimes a slice or two of tender sweet cooked beets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So call it a fried eggplant sandwich, or call it a salad bar stuffed into a pita (with hard boiled egg), but when you are calling this sandwich a Sabich, how do you pronounce it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking at the word, I imagine a big ol’ shlumpy guy named Sahb-bitch, a shlub-like guy’s guy, definately a western (Ashkenazi) guy, someone who would have been working at my uncle\u2019s plumbling shop once upon a time, or driving a taxi, or fressing at the goodies table at (an Ashkenazi) Bar\/Bat Mitzvah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the truth is that Sabich, OUR Sabich, is not pronounced that way at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The name is Iraqi, and so pronounced: SAY-BEEHK<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something like that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pronounced this way, it sounds elegant to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So: Sabich Tzvi Halbi, an Iraqi immigrant to the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan (both areas of large Iraqi immigrant communities), is said to have opened his shop in 1961, and there sold his first salad-stuffed pita. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others say it originated in the street vendors around Tel Aviv’s central bus station, which before the new one was built, was an aladdin’s treasure chest for street food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still the Iraqi eggplant sandwich, but a different location. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the version of the story I love best, as I loved that jumble of stands selling felafel and borekas and fried eggplant\/aubergine\/melanzane\/hatzalim soooo much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, suddenly we are on the streets of Israel and Sabich is sharing his family and community food tradition\u2014in sandwich form\u2014 with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But why overlook an opportunity to argue about something? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some say the name Sabich comes from the Arabic word for breakfast \u2013 the combination of eggplant, hard-boiled egg and potatoes or is an acronym in Hebrew for those ingredients, come on: We have the sandwich, and the guy selling it whose name is the name of the sandwich, why do we need another story about how it came to be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But how did it get from the breakfast table to the streets of Israel? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After all, shwarma and felafel are so popular, and they have the salads and sauces too\u2014why would a pita filled with only the salads and sauces become so famous, so popular? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its not like our friend Sabich was looking around for the next new big thing to invent to make himself famous. And yet\u2026thats exactly what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve heard that since he was closed on Shabbat, on Friday people would come to him, especially bus drivers which is another reason I think of yes: the bus station! and Sabich the felafel maker would make a special pita sandwich of all of his leftover vegetables and sauces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
People would stop in and exclaim: Sabich! A special sandwich!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This version appeals to me because of the wide array, nearly salad-bar-like of vegetables in many felafel shops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A whole day closed, Shabbat, the salads need to be eaten now\u2014at the start of the week, they all need to be fresh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It makes sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dish is simple to assemble: prepare the ingredients and set them out to stuff the pita with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fat fluffy pita is best, but the original was a laffa, or thin Iraqi flatbread. I’ve been using a tender small cross between the two, sold at my local supermarket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since more pita is not as fresh and tender as is most delicious, I recommend warming up the pita first to make it more fragrant, soft, pliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then I tweaked around my (okay, in fact, good, but not fantastic) usual pita recipe and decided: the sandwich is good with an ordinary pita or flatbread, but really really good with fresh fat pita. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without the soft, chewy fluffy pita, the delicious jumble of tastes and textures is\u2026too much of a good thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The super-savoury-sour-crunchy-herby-spicy-add more adjectives as necessary salad ingredients. need the balance of the bland, comforting pita holding it together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putting it all together: Lay out the ingredients in bowls\/plates, heat the pita unless its super fresh, and either make them up individually or let people make their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n