Dateline Jerusalem — It is said that necessity is the mother of invention.  In the 1950s, soon after becoming a state, Israel went through a period of austerity.  It took several months to several years before getting a telephone in the home.  Party lines not only meant sharing a phone line with a neighbor, but people standing in line to use phones at businesses and on street corners.  Some towns had no phones. Most of the country had gas-flamed burners on their stove tops but no ovens.  Trying to bake without an oven was difficult. Necessity led to the Israeli invention of the Wonder Pot, also known as “seer peh-leh.” 

Going to Pot Is Next for Me

I may be the only person in Israel who hadn't heard of or owned a Wonder Pot.  I went to a friend's home for lunch on Passover, and her son had baked a couple of cakes in the pot.  I never had seen one. My  curiosity was piqued.  It looks like a Bundt pan,  round with a hole in the center. Its sides are smooth instead of fluted.  The lid has several small round vents for releasing steam, and it sits on a metal disc that buffers it from the flames on the stove top.  Most people bake cakes and kugels in it. The , Wonder Pot also is used to bake chicken and beef, potatoes, rice and a variety of dishes.  It comes in different sizes to accommodate the type and quantity of food being cooked.  For many Israelis, this is the only means of baking food on Passover when their regular ovens are out of commission, not being kosher for Passover.  I own a giant toaster oven with two electric burners on top to do my cooking on Passover. Now I cannot wait to try out a Wonder Pot. 

Another product invented during the austerity of the 1950s was Israeli couscous called “ptitim.”  It isn't really couscous, but a toasted pasta shaped in little balls.  Since rice was scarce during the time, tPrime Minister David Ben Gurion asked for an alternative to rice.  The result was the invention of ptitim, made from wheat flour. Initially the Israeli couscous was in the shape of rice, but then it morphed into the hard little balls.  When shaped like rice, it was often called “Ben Gurion's rice.”  I used to buy it in the kosher section of the market in the States.  I would saute onions and the balls in olive oil until the onions browned and the couscous toasted.  Then I would add boiling water and parsley, cover the pot, and wait for the hard balls to blow up and soften.  Both texture and taste is so much better than rice.

Since 60 percent of Israel is considered desert, and water is scarce, Israel had to develop a means of converting salt or sea water into fresh water for drinking and irrigation purposes. Over half its domestic water use is from seawater desalination.  Israel uses the largest percent of desalinated water in the world.  The desalination process has been so successful that Israel now claims an excess in desalinated water and plans to reduce its production by one-third.  Jordan and the Palestinians want to buy Israel's excess desalinated water, and Israel is now helping California develop desalination plants to overcome its drought problems.

No matter how simple, like the Wonder Pot, or complex like desalination, Israel continues to be a frontrunner when it comes to inventions to solve every day problems. 

L'hitraot.  Shachar