[img]96|left|Shachar||no_popup[/img]Dateline Jerusalem — Since biblical times, Israel has been known as the Land of Milk and Honey. It is also an appropriate description for modern times.

The supermarket aisles of cheeses and other dairy products offer a variety of taste pleasures. And although the shelves display bee honey, the honey referred to in Israel is the sweet, sappy honey dripping from date branches on the palm trees here.

Dates were one of the seven species of grains and fruit inherent to the land of Israel, which, in ancient days, were brought as the first fruit offerings to the Holy Temple. Nowadays, the seven species have become an important aspect of holidays. In addition to the dates, there are olives, pomegranates, figs, grapes, barley and wheat.

Tonight as I walked through the park adjacent to my apartment building, I could see hundreds of dates growing in clusters on the palm trees. They were orange-like in color, and they will turn yellow as they begin to ripen. Now they are unrecognizable from the brown shriveled dates we are used to buying in packages in U.S. markets.

In Israel,I go to the fruit and vegetable store to buy the hard yellow colored dates on the vines. As they begin to Soften, dry up and ripen into the brown dates we all know, I enjoy the taste of the sweet, delicious honey sap dripping from them.

Then I eat the shriveled dates as a snack or ingredient in many of my mid-Eastern dishes.

Meet the Irresistible Milky

Israel also is known for the quality of its dairy products. There is a particular breakfast cheese with a consistency thicker than yogurt but thinner than chocolate pudding that I often eat for breakfast. It is fruit flavored with a smoothness and texture that makes it taste like dessert for breakfast.

Bulgarian cheese is popular and so are many salted cheeses. Cream cheese here is smoother, easier to spread on bread. Yellow cheese, as it is called here, comes in a variety of percentages of fat content, but tastes as good at 3 percent fat as it does at 26 percent.

Just about every package of cheese and carton of milk is marked with the percentage of fat content for those who are diet-conscious. Many times milk is sold in plastic bags instead of cartons. But the favorite dairy dessert is a “milky,” a chocolate pudding with whipped cream on top, sold in cartons like yogurt.

At the market last week I bought an avocado the size of a grapefruit. That usually is the size of the pomegranates in season. Israel's mango crop is a major export. In Chinese restaurants in the States, lichee nut ice cream used to be a treat, but the taste of fresh lichee nut fruit is a delightful experience, and an acquired taste.

There are also fruits and vegetables with unusual shapes and colors and textures that I have never seen before. This year I hope to try them all.

From the land of milk and honey,

L'hitraot. Shachar

Shachar is the Hebrew name of a California-based attorney and former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who moved to Israel three years ago.