Craving Jerusalem kaek: how the famed bread offers a true taste of the ancient city

When Jordanians obtain a visa for Israel, they are inundated with demands from relatives and friends to bring back a near-mythical product of a culinary tradition shaped by history and conquest.

Jerusalem kaek – called Jerusalem bread by the Jewish population of the city – is similar to a bagel but is much larger, less dense, always baked with sesame as part the crust and with a smoky taste. Kaek, meaning cake or bun, is ever so slightly sugary, and if not consumed fresh and hot from the oven, it must be frozen and then always heated again before eating.

This treat – kaek Al Quds in Arabic – dates back centuries, maybe even millennia. But in the 1990s, a worker at the Suneina bakery, which is owned by a family of kaek masters, in Bab Hatta, in occupied East Jerusalem, added a new twist. He enlarged and elongated the dough into an oblong ring.

“He came up with the shape, and it took off,” says master kaek baker Nasser Suneina, who has been working the oven since he was a child. Now in this 30s, he is paying with his health for his membership of a dwindling number of guardians of an artisan tradition, in an age of automated mass production, gas and electric ovens and inauthentic Jerusalem kaek.

Nasser has respiratory problems and his body bears deep burn scars from long hours in front of an old stone underground oven, fired by olive wood. The confines are suffocating, making the work arduous. “We cannot put in more ventilation, or the dough will not turn out right,” says Nasser's younger brother, Ahmad.

Some Suneinas say that they came to Jerusalem with the warrior Saladin in the 12th century. Nasser's family are originally from Hebron, with his grandfather moving to Jerusalem in the 20th century and starting the bakery at Bab Hatta.

It is almost dawn on Friday and the Suneina brothers have been working since midnight to meet expected demand from worshippers who flock early to the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City, not far from the alleyways of Bab Hatta.

When it comes to bread, there is little dispute that Jerusalem kaek is very special – among the top culinary traditions of the Holy Land, although the Jewish inhabitants also have a strong baking culture, enhanced by their diaspora in Europe.

The kaek is so coveted in its authentic form that Jonathan, a Jewish merchant, buys it in Bab Hatta, although there is an Arab kaek maker in the Jewish district. “It is much better in Bab Hatta, and cheaper,” he says.

Jonathan buys three kaeks for 10 shekels ($2.67), a bargain considering the amount of labour and preparation involved. The flour comes from Ukraine, through the port city of Haifa.

“Ultimately, it is not good for you because it is white bread, “ Jonathan says. “But it is so tasty.”

But not all Jerusalem kaeks are equal. And those who are still baking it traditionally are becoming fewer and fewer. Imitators break with baking tradition by using gas, which deprives kaek Al Quds of its smoky olive wood taste. The Suneinas only use gas to preheat the oven. Some bakers sell what they call Jerusalem kaek without even baking it in the Old City – culinary sacrilege for the Suneina brothers and their customers.

If it is not baked within the walls of Old Jerusalem, the kaek will not taste the same, they say. Without the earth and atmosphere of the old city, which has just the right humidity for the dough, it will come out as just tasteless bread, insist the brothers and their loyal customers.

And there appears to be substance to the claim. Following exhaustive tasting of kaek from bakeries in Jerusalem and its environs and north of the city in Ramallah – all in the name of journalistic research, of course – it can be revealed that only the elite of the elite baker families in Jerusalem can make authentic Jerusalem kaek. Well, at least according to this correspondent's taste buds.

Only their ancient stone ovens turn the dough fluffy instead of chewy, its crust imbued with a hue of unique gold, with just the right density and the calibrated smoked flavour.

Anything can be eaten with the kaek; but less is more. Customers who buy kaek usually also receive a small packet of zaatar. Opposite the Suneina bakery is a falafel maker. Moist, crusty, falafel with some cumin and sumac on top works perfectly with the kaek, and even more so with a little bit of tahini and tomatoes.

The falafel shop owner is also from Hebron, another ancient city whose inhabitants have traditionally been a pillar of Jerusalem's economic engine.

Years ago, the Suneinas opened a second bakery in Ezarieh, only a few kilometres from the Old City. But despite their unrivalled expertise, the kaek in Ezarieh couldn't compete in taste terms.

A Muslim cleric dropping by at the Suneina bakery in Bab Hatta in search of its crustiest buns says Jerusalem kaek “needs these hallowed grounds”, in order to come out just right.