Fish was, indeed, the staple of the meal.

Fried fish, and such fried fish! Only a great poet could sing the praises of the national dish, and the golden age of Hebrew poetry is over.

Strange that Gebirol should have lived and died without the opportunity of the theme, and that the great Jehuda Halevi himself should have had to devote his genius merely to singing the glories of Jerusalem.

"Israel is among the other nations," he sang, "as the heart among the limbs." Even so is the fried fish of Judaea to the fried fish of Christendom and Heathendom.

With the audacity of true culinary genius, Jewish fried fish is always served cold.