Elat: The Culture Club : You can stock a Persian or Israeli kosker kitchen with thefish and produce at this Middle Easter market--but go for the yogurt.

By LINDA BURUM

Aug. 10, 1995 12 AM PT

At Elat Middle Eastern Market, people jockey their way through the crowded aisles, pushing carts overflowing with mounds of produce. Some shoppers have half a dozen heads of cabbage in their baskets or several flats of fresh figs perched on the carts’ baby seats. You get the impression that nearly everyone is stocking up for several months. “They’ll be back in a day or two to buy just as much,” says Ingrid Paredes, the store’s administrative assistant.

Shoppers at Elat take food buying seriously and go about it with great zeal. Some phone ahead to check on the arrival of the store’s huge produce truck, wanting first crack at the fresh herbs that Elat grows near San Diego. They’re also eager to inspect the produce that buyer Ray Golbar chooses at the downtown produce market, looking for things they will inevitably buy in large quantities.

“We’re inundated with calls around 10 a.m.,” Paredes says with a sigh.

Their enthusiasm for quantity buying stems from the Near Eastern esteem for an abundant table. Lavish spreads of food are a symbol of good hospitality and a family’s well-being. Plenitude is equated with family honor and status, so food shopping takes a high priority. Elat caters specifically to customers from Iran and Israel. So, unlike some Near Eastern stores that specialize in the Turkish-influenced goods of the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Greece and Armenia), Elat supplies ingredients for the quite different Iranian larder. Along with the pomegranate syrup and basmati rice used in Persian dishes, you’ll find European-style kosher cold cuts, kosher cheeses and Israeli butter. Next to the Near Eastern-style flat breads are the challah and Russian-style breads favored by European Ashkenazi Jews who come from Eastern Europe via Israel. The disparate elements reflect the multinational nature of modern Israeli cooking.

The store is kosher: You won’t find shrimp or pork in the fish and meat department, but Elat is known for marvelously fresh whitefish, which Persians love. And in the pastry department, at the middle of the store, are French-style cakes and tarts made with the dairy-free ingredients suitable for a kosher table when meat is served.

The spirit of an old-fashioned Middle Eastern public marketplace still prevails at Elat even though it has modern electronic door openers and bar-coded merchandise and accepts Visa and MasterCard. Several departments within the store are like individually staffed boutiques, providing the sort of personalized service typical of specialty shopkeepers.

At the cheese and pastry counter, I overheard a clerk explain the differences between Israeli, Danish, Bulgarian and French feta. And at the dried fruit and nut corner--in the time-honored fashion of Near Eastern merchants--the clerk offered his customer a few nuts and a large date to sample while they were deep in a discussion about the quality of Iranian pistachios. She munched on them while perusing the store’s half-a-dozen styles of raisins.

Customers elsewhere in the store get this same sort of attention. If they have questions, they flag down Keyvan Novinbakht or Farhad Kamani, who attend to customer service as they rove the store. They, along with Golbar and grocery buyer Faramarz Rabikashi, are co-owners of Elat.

Golbar’s parents started the business in 1982 in a tiny store up the street, but they soon outgrew the place. The four men bought them out in 1985 and moved to a larger store. After a fire in ‘92, it took about two years to rebuild; in the process, the space was more than doubled.

Elat is much larger now, but on Thursday and Friday afternoons when crowds are shopping for Friday night Seders, it’s almost impossible to find space in the parking lot. Breads are snapped up, dollies loaded with vegetable boxes bring on fresh supplies and cooks brave the crowds to collect the fish heads they’ve ordered for gefilte fish or soup. It adds up to a bazaar-like atmosphere. But the shoppers here don’t seem to mind. They are intent on supplying their abundant tables.

SHOPPING LIST

Not to be missed at Elat are the Israeli-style salads. The deli counter near the front window displays about 20 varieties, including many made with eggplant. The popular baba ghannouj is one, and there is eggplant sauteed with peppers and onions or finely minced with garlic-mayonnaise or chopped and cooked in a tomato sauce. Commercially packaged brands of similar salads, many of them very good, are found in the cooler across from the dried fruit section.

Pickle lovers will want to investigate the pickled vegetable mixtures and pickled shallots and pickled garlic cloves. The fresh herbs are definitely worth exploring. The big bushy bunches are well priced and include rarely found fresh fenugreek and summer savory.

Yogurt: Take a look at Elat’s cooler case, which begins to the left of the pastries and continues well beyond around the corner, and you find a spectacular array of plain yogurt--more brands than you ever knew existed (unless you’re a Middle Eastern cook). It’s a real eye-opener to discover how many are made in Los Angeles County. Shemshad, one of my favorite Persian-style yogurts, is based in La Crescenta. Other local brands include Golchin (produced in Sylmar), Pak, Byblos, Sadaf, Akhavon, Natural & Kosher Bulgarian style and Indo-European of Glendale. A few others are from companies based on the East Coast, and there’s even an imported Israeli yogurt.

The sweetened, fruit-flavored yogurts that predominate in most supermarket yogurt sections are only a tiny minority here. Most of Elat’s yogurts are the unadorned, wonderfully creamy full-fat style (although in a nod to current dietary concerns, low-fat versions are also available). Because yogurt is such a basic staple in Near Eastern cooking, much of it is packed in two-pound tubs.

Yogurt , the word we use, is the Turkish name. The Persian word is ma^st and in Armenian it’s called madzun . In Egypt and some other Arab countries, the name is laban zaba^di or laban ra^yib , but in Syria and Lebanon it’s simply laban . Expect to see any or all of these terms on the labels.

Each Middle Eastern culture uses yogurt in countless ways. It appears in salads and side dishes designed to refresh the palate. It also works its way into soups, sauces and cakes. With a little sugar, yogurt is an instant snack or dessert; diluted with water it becomes a refreshing drink. Persian women use yogurt for facials. And yogurt is touted as a remedy for many ailments including sunburn. It’s even supposed to stave off old age.

One of the most ancient processed foods, yogurt was probably discovered shortly after the advent of dairying, when lactic acid bacteria (lactobacilli) soured it naturally. The acidity made an inhospitable environment for the more sinister microbes that spoil milk, so yogurt stayed fresh longer than fresh milk. Cooks also discovered that by draining away the liquid whey, yogurt could be made into something like cheese. Being lower in moisture and relatively more acidic, this kept even longer than yogurt.

It’s easy to appreciate why Elat sells so many brands, each with its own particular flavor nuances. Not so long ago, most yogurt was made at home from a culture developed by housewives to suit their families’ taste. When a woman had to move to another place, it was common practice to spread her coveted yogurt culture on a handkerchief and dry it out. She would pack it among her indispensable possessions and use it to start yogurt in her new home.

If she were Turkish she might use the yogurt in yayla corbasi , a soup made from chicken stock thickened with rice and egg yolk and garnished with dried mint and butter. A Jordanian cook would surely use it in mansaf , braised lamb in yogurt sauce, garnished with toasted pine nuts and served over rice.

A Persian cook might use her yogurt if she made a^sh-e ma^st , a rich yogurt-based soup thick with lentils, chick peas and rice seasoned with half a dozen kinds of fresh herbs. And she would use it practically every day in one or another bora^ni , a sort of salad consisting of a cooked vegetable dressed with yogurt and garlic.

Bor^ani-e esfena^j , for instance, is steamed spinach blended with yogurt and garnished with browned onions. A bora^ni might be made with beets, in which case it would be called bor^ani-e labu . Bora^nis also go by the names of their major ingredients, so bor^ani-e labu is also known as ma^st-o labu (yogurt and beets). The universal Indian and Near Eastern dish of yogurt with cucumber is not a bora^ni because the cucumbers are raw, so it’s always called ma^st-o khia^r .

Ma^st-o Musir: The only one of these yogurt-vegetable dips I’ve seen commercially made is ma^st-o musir --yogurt with minced shallots. Most bora^nis are best when freshly prepared, but ma^st-o musir tastes best after the yogurt and shallot mixture has mellowed in the refrigerator. At Elat you’ll have five or six brands of ma^st-o musir to choose from. Traditionally these are served with lavash bread right along with the main course, but Persian restaurants in Los Angeles often offer them as an appetizer.

Lebneh: When yogurt is hung in a cloth bag for a few hours, the whey drains off, leaving a thickened product that’s like a tart cream cheese. This is lebneh in Arabic and ma^st-e kise’i (“bag yogurt”) in Persian (on some labels you’ll see the word spelled kiesi or kissie ).

As you’ll see by the ingredients listed on some lebneh packages, cream is often added to produce a richer product. As with the yogurts, Elat carries many brands of lebneh. In some cases, it is easy to confuse lebneh with yogurt because both the words yogurt and lebneh appear on the lebneh label. Yogurt, however, will not have the word lebneh on its label.

A breakfast staple all over the Near East, lebneh also appears among the mezzeh (appetizers) at almost any meal. Cooks will dribble a little olive oil over the surface of lebneh and serve it with warm bread. Iranians often prefer to blend in several tablespoons of chopped fresh herbs, particularly chives, dill and mint. The tart, herbal flavor is really an eye-opener.

Armenians have a slightly different take on this dish. For their madzna banir , the lebneh is shaped into small balls with a spoon and dipped in olive oil, then served with a sprinkling of fresh herbs.

Kashk: Thousands of years ago, someone discovered that the whey drained from the yogurt used to make cheese was good for pregnant women, who, according to folklore, crave it. We now know why this bit of old-time conventional wisdom works: Whey carries most of the calcium (good for growing bones) in dairy products. When mixed with a bit of ground grain, kashk, or kishk , as the mixture is known, will thicken as it evaporates. It can be preserved by drying, kept almost indefinitely and then reconstituted with a small amount of water into a delicious thick, creamy fat-free sauce.

If dried whey doesn’t sound too alluring, dishes such as kashk-o ba^demja^n will change your mind. Inevitably on the menu of Persian restaurants, it’s a wonderful mix of fried eggplant with well-browned, practically caramelized onion and garlic. The mellow, earthy mixture is drizzled with the slightly tart kashk, and the play of tart and sweet flavors make the rich dish difficult to stop eating.

Like yogurt, kashk has many uses. Persians are particularly fond of adding it to soup. One spectacular version, kalleh jush , is a rich pottage of ground meat with slowly browned onions and chopped dates. It’s thickened with chopped walnuts or pistachios, then garnished with crumbled dried mint. Few dishes exemplify the subtle complexities of Persian home cooking as well as kalleh jush .

Elat sells dried kashk, but you’ll find many brands in a reconstituted form in the yogurt section. Nearly all the companies making yogurt also package kashk under their own labels. A few lesser-known brands of kashk, like Bibi and Angel’s Bakery (from Ventura), have also come onto the market.

Yogurt Drinks: With a cooling piquant taste that cleanses the palate, yogurt drinks are a staple refreshment in restaurants, at street vendors’ stands and at homes all around the Middle East. A cousin of the Indian salty lassi, these tangy mixtures of yogurt, water and salt, frequently splashed over lots of coarsely crushed ice, are sometimes seasoned with a bit of dried mint.

Variously called dugh (Persian), tahn (Armenian), ayran (Turkish and Arabic) or simply yogurt drink, they are bottled in pint-sized containers. Several styles of dugh are produced by a number of local companies who make both regular and low-fat versions. One style based on carbonated water--in effect a yogurt soda--also comes in plain and mint flavors.

Breakfast Creme: With the texture of thick yogurt but none of its sour piquancy, “breakfast creme” is simply a thickened blend of cream and milk that turns warm bread into bites from heaven. Slightly warmed barbari bread (sold here) makes the perfect foundation for its richness. Unlike sour cream or creme frai^che , it isn’t cultured or clabbered, so what you taste is the essence of cream on its own, a little like English clotted cream. It’s a luxurious garnish for summer berries or peaches, too.

Israeli Sheep’s Milk Cheeses: Most Near Eastern-style cheese made in the United States and even imported products like feta are made with cow’s milk. But sheep are more common in the Middle East, and the distinctive flavor of sheep’s milk cheese is the perfect complement to the spectrum of Near Eastern flavors.

Elat carries a unique collection of Israeli sheep’s milk cheeses. There are Bashan, a smoked cheese sold in thin slices, and a spun-curd cheese called kashkaval, which is sharper in flavor than its Italian counterpart, cacciocavallo. The feta has the aromatic complexity often missing from the cow’s-milk version. There’s even a sheep’s milk version of blue cheese called, appropriately enough, the Blue Sheep.

Elat Market, 8730 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 659-7070 or (310) 659-ELAT. Open Sunday to Thursday 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.