Israeli cuisine spicy or sweet-and-sour, with ingredients such as bell peppers, chili peppers, figs, onion, artichoke bottoms, Swiss chard, beet, dried fruits, tomato, vine leaves, potatoes, mallow, eggplants and zucchini squash, and stuffing such as meat and rice in Balkan style, bulgur in Middle Eastern fashion, or with ptitim, a type of Israeli pasta. The Ottoman Turks introduced stuffed vine leaves in the 16th century and vine leaves are commonly stuffed with a combination of meat and rice, although other fillings, such as lentils, have evolved among the various communities. Artichoke bottoms stuffed with meat are famous as one the grand dishes
Cabbage variety of other vegetables and pulses. The ancient Greeks had some varieties of cabbage, as mentioned by Theophrastus, although whether they were more closely related to today's cabbage or to one of the other "Brassica" crops is unknown. The headed cabbage variety was known to the Greeks as "krambe" and to the Romans as "brassica" or "olus"; the open, leafy variety (kale) was known in Greek as "raphanos" and in Latin as "caulis". Chrysippus of Cnidos wrote a treatise on cabbage, which Pliny knew, but it has not survived. The Greeks were convinced that cabbages and grapevines were inimical, and