Serving Time: On Cooking and Finding Meaning Behind Bars

Prison and food. On the surface, there is no less appetizing combination. Yet, this book by Dr. Rami Adut and Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, based on their extensive research, offers a glimpse into the surprising world of prison food and turns it into a feast for the senses. The researchers weighed portions and counted schnitzels, interviewed inmates, listened to confessions, and took part in both intimate conversations and kitchen chatter. They even recorded recipes directly from prisoners, revealing surprising creativity, given the restrictive conditions.

This book does not settle for a mere description of the complex reality of prison food. It analyzes the symbolic and social meanings embedded within it, including power relations, identity struggles, the longing for freedom, and the attempt to hold on to sanity, personal identity, and the connection to tradition and home.

This is no ordinary book. It is not a food book in the conventional sense, nor is it a formal academic study, and certainly not a typical cookbook—though it contains recipes, some of which are surprising and intriguing. The book does not seek to absolve the incarcerated nor does it deny their actions; rather, it allows us to better understand their world, and perhaps our own world and humanity itself, even in the darkest of places.

The prison interior photographs featured in this book were captured between 2009 and 2014 as part of Yair Hovav’s artistic-documentary project, ‘Dekel-Hadarim-Rimonim Prisons.’