In February and March I worked on an industrial pig farm in Israel, which was mentioned on Jcarrot back in February. In a way my time there was a bizarre, self-inflicted, extended identity crisis - but it was also a fascinating and challenging experience for me as both a kosher Jew and a believer in non-factory farmed meat.

I spent time on the “other” side and just recently wrote an article in The Forward, called “On Israel’s Only Jewish-Run Pig Farm, It’s the Swine That Bring Home the Bacon,” which expresses and reflects my own experiences on the farm, the many contradictions of this particular kibbutz, as well as the contradictions within myself.

You can read the full article here.

After two months working on the pig farm and a few weeks of recuperation, I’m back to the The Jew & The Carrot blogging world, while living, cooking, eating, composting and blogging in Tel Aviv. Good to be back.

There’s an incredible magazine that I’ve been meaning to post about. It’s called Meatpaper and as its cover states, it is “your journal of meat culture.” And it really is. Meatpaper is a beautiful graphic art print magazine that documents the recent fleischgeist. It features incredible pictures and photo essays in addition to interesting, bizarre, and funny interviews and articles. Some of the issues the magazine covers are similar to ones discussed here on The Jew & The Carrot (debates about the moral consumption of meat) and others are certainly not (the importance of eating bull penis, and whether or not one should eat their spouse if deserted on an island together.)

In issue 3, there is an article on eating testicles in Tunisia, a meditation on why meat is so photogenic (and whether or not clown noses or tube socks, dressed similarly, could look as good), a photo series called “Acquaintances Holding My Plate of Meat,” and one great article called “Pork in the Promised Land,” that I may or may not have written. It’s a fun magazine and is a conversation starter and stopper. The print magazine and issue three is only available in stores, not on their website. It’s well worth it, if only for the sausage glamour shots.

(x-posted from The Wet Sprocket)

At a Chanukkah party with my family in Israel, my relative—a food connosieur who travels the world and eats in the finest restaurants—cleared up a major confusion of mine regarding the jelly doughnut treats.

Just last week my American friend was asking me if I grew up with Sufganiot. I wasn’t sure how to answer him. I sang about Sufganiot in my Hebrew Chanukkah songs, and I definitely had some growing up, but my family was all about latkes and we never had fried, jelly or chocolate flavored doughnuts during the holiday.

My relative, the gourmand, asked me today if I grew up with the holiday treat. I hesitated in answering him. He then told me why it wouldn’t have made sense for me to have grown up with them. “Sufganiot are an Israeli invention,” he told me as if it were a secret. Latkes are the food of the Ashkenazim that were eaten traditionally in Europe for many years. The Sephardim eat other fried doughnut-like treats, but they aren’t called Sufganiot and they’re not jelly filled. In fact, he told me, “Sephardim wouldn’t touch the modern Sufganiah.”

Read more »

The Oxford American Dictionary just announced its word of the year and it’s more than relevant to us all at The Jew and the Carrot. The most important new word for 2007 is: LOCAVORE. Even a more prescriptivist dictionary like Oxford has recognized the new local movement and the importance of a diet based on locally harvested foods. The New York Times covered this story. According to the Times’ Mike Nizza, “The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.” Nizza detailed a bit about the movement’s history up until the coining of the word of the year by Jessica Prentice of San Fransisco in 2005.

The runner-up for the word of the year was “tase,” as in to stun someone with a taser or stun gun.

It seems that Jews have made it. Bizarre, strange American holiday rituals (read: butter turkeys for Thanksgiving, fruit cakes for Christmas) have extended out a hand to American Jews. New for the holiday season is a special soda that tastes like latkes and a Christmas Ham soda that happens to be kosher.

Jones Soda co., a Seattle based soda-maker, announced new soda flavors for the holiday season. See the story in The Olympian. Jones is known for bizarre and “offbeat” flavors. New to the holiday line–in addition to the turkey and gravy soda flavors for Thanksgiving–are Chanukkah and Christmas flavors. The Hanukkah pack features Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and latkes soda flavors. “As always, both packs are kosher,” a Jones statement read. Read more »

Before I left for Israel my doctor told me I had a major gluten sensitivity. This is not the news anybody wants to hear before they go off to a country whose 7/11’s carry rolls and pastries on par with some of the best shops in New York. This is also not the news you want to hear if you want to indulge in the unhealthy treats that Israel has to offer: i.e. Shawarma in a lafa, rugelach from Machane Yehuda, malawach, jachnun, schnitzel, and much more. The list of glutenous foods goes on, and tragically, the corner falafel joints I once frequented (and ocasionally still do) don’t offer rice and corn flour alternatives to wheat-flour pita.

For the most part, this new food restriction has actually forced me to eat healthier. Meals in my apartment are rice and quinoa based, and they are made without that delightful greasiness that most falafel joints offer. Snacking has been especially tough, though. I bought packaged roasted almonds and found that they were preserved with gluten. I went to a Mexican restaurant and ordered nachos, naturally expecting gluten-free corn tortillas. Instead, since Israel is not known for its Mexican food, there were wheat pita chips that were deep-fried for a Mexican-like effect. Even most chocolate bars have wafers inside them which are filled with gluten.

Last night I was hungry and craving something both sweet and salty. Read more »

Days after Yom Kippur and it is already happening again: another pork establishment in Israel was set on fire.  Ynet reported the news, though they have yet to report for sure whether or not the arsonist was an ultra-Orthodox Jew; nevertheless, this is just one of many recent related attacks and one more part of the ongoing battle over pork in Israel (see Ben Murane’s post on such battles in Netanya).

I just arrived in Israel one day before Yom Kippur and will be here for the year exclusively researching pork in Israel.  I am specifically analyzing the tension between religious and secular Israelis, and am interested in how certain Israelis raise and eat pork as a form of political and cultural protest.  It is still illegal to raise pigs on Jewish land, though through a series of loopholes, a few kibbutzim have emerged as major producers of Israel-raised pork products.  I’ve been following this topic very closely and when attacks like this most recent one occur, I take notice . . . and feel surprisingly conflicted.    Read more »

I just came home for Rosh Hashanah to be with my family at my parents’ home for the first time since I started Adamah last May. I expected to miss baskets filled with seasonal, local produce; I anticipated longing for the cultural values of so many people at Adamah. Usually my family does pretty well on the organic front, but hardly any of the produce in the house at any given time is local or fresh. It’s usually organic from California or Central America (the avocados). I was pleasantly surprised.

There is squash and zucchini aplenty on my mother’s kitchen counter. In fact, there is a small garden outside my house that supplies peppers and tomatoes, and all the other produce in the house is from a Morristown, New Jersey farmers market. Somehow, my experience with Hazon and Adamah had an impressive influence on my parents. From visiting the field at Isabella Freedman, talking to me over the course of a few months, sponsoring me in the New York ride and attending the New York ride celebration at the JCC, my mother and father literally took many of the messages home with them along with their delicious lacto-fermented Adamah pickles. Read more »

As Hazon’s New York Ride approaches, everyone here at Adamah is excited. For one, we’ve been training for the Ride and it so happens that our program culminates with the awesome shabbaton followed by the Ride itself. That means Anna’s in the kitchen baking bread to help us load up on carbs this week and we’re all making pancakes with goat’s milk every morning. We’re also doing last minute maintenance and repairs on our bikes and scrounging around for extra bike shorts. In two days we look forward to welcoming hundreds of riders to our community and showing off our three months of work. Can’t wait for you all to get here.

Isabella Freedman is also gearing up for the 400+ people who will help make the New York ride the largest retreat to be held at the center. We’ve stocked up on new items, such as silverware, plates, wine glasses, as well as new pots and pans. In order for these items to be used in our kosher kitchen, we need to do a whole lot of toiveling. Toiveling is the practice of dipping kitchen accessories in a mikveh (ritual bath) to purify them and make them kosher before permanent cooking use. Read more »

Most people who know me here at Adamah know that I do not eat dairy. I haven’t eaten it for over four years. Soon after deciding to abstain from milk products I found myself to be somewhat of an anti-dairy activist, always questioning friends’ dietary decisions and scoffing at cheese lovers.

I stopped eating dairy initially because I believed that it was unhealthy and bizarre to eat, and because I had trouble digesting it. I subsequently chose to cut the food group from my diet and have taken it to the extreme. I don’t eat baked goods made with dairy, I don’t eat pizza, and I don’t eat cheesecake. I further vilified the food group and its producers in conversations with friends and family to legitimate and validate my decision.

Here’s the problem. I’ve been eating plenty of non-healthy foodstuffs that are non-dairy. I found that I have mainly replaced dairy with processed soy products which I believe are far less healthy than dairy and worse for the environment (soy is produced as a monoculture in this country and is water and land intensive).

Here at Adamah I’ve begun to question my anti-dairy decision. Read more »

It’s hard to get excited about mulching. In fact, most aspects of farming are tedious and not too exciting. Sitting in the library researching various food commodities over the years has meant that I have spent many an hour day dreaming about becoming a farmer and how beautiful and fulfilling my life would be.

I am a farmer now. A Jewish farmer to boot. I’m currently a participant of Adamah, the Isabella Freedman’s Jewish organic farming program that Anna has written about. My name is Jeff and this is my first post on The Jew and The Carrot.

Read more »