In the narrow, exciting streets there were little cookshops that sold kebab (shish kebab is the Turkish form). Bits of meat, tomato, and onion broiled on spikes. In the early spring bunches of green chickpeas, roasted in the bread ovens, were sold. These foods were sold to the peasants who came into the city to work, and our nurses liked them, and we liked them too.

–Bertha Spafford Vester, Our Jerusalem (1950)

When Ibrahim Faraj of Restaurant Diana in Nazareth lifts up his huge knife, watch out! With what seems a single cut and a single slash, he either slices his meat into chunks or chops it so fast that it becomes ground meat for kebabs. The larger the audience, the more this impresario likes it. First he fires up his oven, burning lemon and avocado wood, and waits until the embers are white. Then, with the flourish of an accomplished showman, he sprinkles onions, parsley, salt, and black and white pepper onto the meat, and forms the ovals with an almost magical efficiency. In a country which prides itself on its grilled meat, his recipe wins, hands down.