Israeli couscous. One of those two words is a lie.
In the 1950s, following Israel’s independence, the country entered a period of austerity and imposed a rationing regime. Because of this, rice –– a common food for many immigrants to the new nation –– was scarce, and David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s Prime Minister) needed to find an affordable grain for people to eat. He approached Eugen Propper, founder of the Osem food company, and asked him to invent an easy-to-mass-produce, wheat-based substitute for rice.
Osem came up with Israeli couscous –– a dried, toasted pasta made from water, egg yolk, and flour. (It’s not actually couscous, which is made from semolina.) When first devised, these little grains were in the shape of long-grained rice. Osem named them p’titim, Hebrew for “little crumbles,” but many Israelis just called them “Ben-Gurion rice,” in reference to the man who commissioned them.
When the rations were lifted, the need for p’titim disappeared, but the rice substitute was loved by Israelis as an easy side dish for any meal. It was ingrained in Israeli culinary culture. Thus, Osem kept producing them, adding new shapes: Rings, stars, and a small sphere that resembled both Palestinian couscous (maftoul) and petite Jewish egg noodles (farfel). It was the sphere that gained the most popularity.
During most of the 20th century, p’titim was largely unknown in the United States. Until 1993.
According to legend, that year, Israeli chef Mika Sharon was working in New York City’s Tribeca Grill, and she invited the Grill’s executive chef Don Pintabona over to her apartment for dinner. At dinner, Sharon served p’titim to her daughter. A curious Pintabona tasted it. He loved it, and a few days later, he added a dish to the Tribeca Grill menu: sea bass over p’titim in a saffron broth. The p’titim in the dish “looked like these beautiful swimming pearls,” Sharon recalled.
On the menu, Pintabona renamed the p’titim. He called them “Israeli couscous.”
This endearing story is largely anecdotal. Other sources attribute the “Israeli couscous” name to the company Osem itself. Perhaps they changed the name because the pearls looked like North African couscous. Or perhaps because they thought the name would land better with international (non-Hebrew speaking) markets.
No matter what, by the turn of the 21st century, Israeli couscous spread across America, notably in high-end dining: You could find the ingredient in dishes from celebrity chefs such as Charlie Trotter and Martha Stewart. Quite different from the humble origins of the dish in Israel, where –– to this day –– it’s seen as an everyday food, a quick side dish for home dinners.
In Israel, p’titim are quotidian; in America, Israeli couscous is elegant. Maybe this is because of the name: When the Patagonian toothfish was renamed Chilean sea bass, it started appearing on fine dining menus. Same for the rebranding of goosefish to monkfish. Names drive perception. Sure, it’s hard to claim Israeli couscous’ rise to American fame is all because of a name change –– the “celebrity endorsements” from Pintabona and others, its delicious nutty taste, its satisfying chewy texture, and its ease of cooking certainly helped –– but, as many folks in marketing will tell you, branding matters, too.
Notes.
Sources include two articles from Forward (here and here), one article from My Jewish Learning, and one article from Taste. The Taste article provides the most detailed account of the Sharon anecdote.