What constitutes “Israeli food”? Cultural history often overlooks the role played by food, but food products can often become symbols of national identity. For example, rice is entwined with the history and identity of the Japanese, while cheese is a symbol of France. In the case of a new nation like Israel, a connection between the people and a common land and history has to be created artificially. Food was one of many cultural products that were used by the Jewish nationalist movement to establish and enhance the ties that would bond the Jewish people to Palestine, or the land of Israel. This paper will look at how the humble falafel went from Arab peasant food to one of Israel’s national symbols, using the symbolism of falafel as a case study to examine the manipulation of food products as instruments in the creation of national identity. Early Jewish immigrants to Palestine adopted certain local Arab cultural practices in a deliberate attempt to relinquish diaspora habits in favour of a new existence in Palestine. These halutzim (“pioneers”) of the Second and Third Aliyas chose to adopt certain Arab models that they imagined as the continuation of a Jewish existence in a mythical past of their own invention. As a street food, not a sophisticated cuisine, falafel was more readily accepted by the Jewish community in Palestine at a time when home cooking was seen as part of the bourgeois existence the halutzim had left behind in Europe. As the importance of agriculture diminished and the demographics of the Jewish population changed - following Israel’s independence in 1948, a much larger percentage of non-European immigrants began to arrive. Falafel could now be linked to Jewish immigrants who had come from the Middle East and Africa, allowing it to shed its Arab association in favour of an overarching Israeli identification. Nowadays falafel can be found everywhere in Israel - from ready-made supermarket mixes to modern fast-food chains, and it is consumed at all levels of Israeli society. Falafel is often presented as a proud national symbol on postcards, tourist publications, and at meals served abroad. The key questions this paper seeks to answer are: how are non-state actors in Israel such as the Arab and Mizrahi Jewish populations marginalised in the development of falafel as a national symbol? What does the emergence of falafel as a national symbol illuminate about Israeli national identity?