Ruth Abusch-Magder is a chocoholic rabbi who lives in San Francisco, CA. Her interest in Jewish food is professional and personal; not only did she write a dissertation on Jewish foodways but she makes a mean challah. She works in continuing Rabbinic education and frequently teaches and writes around issues of food and gender.
I often get asked if there is such thing as Jewish food. After all, Jews are not the only ones to smoke meat, eat couscous or make fish into little balls. So when I was asked to put together a short description of Jewish food to sit on the tables at the upcoming HAZON conference I was excited to try and answer the question. The topic is a big one but here on one foot is a good succinct overview.
What is Jewish Food?
Sukkot is a wonderful time to celebrate not just the bounty of the earth but also the diversity of Jewish life that comes together to make up the Jewish community. Both of those elements are joined in the blessings we say over the arbat haminim. Meant to represent the bounty and diversity of the plant world, the lulav, etrog, hadas, and aravah also stand in for the coming together of the disparate elements of the Jewish people. As we learn in the Talmud, a person does not fulfill the obligation of arbat haminim until “the four plants are bound together in one cluster. [As] it is with Israel’s endeavor to conciliate God, which is successful only when all of Israel are together in one cluster.” Menachot 27a.
While it is wonderful to literally invite the diversity of our community into our sukkot by hosting new guests in our sukkot, the tradition ofushpizin suggests that we can extend our reach by use of metaphoric invitations and ritual actions to create an atmosphere that celebrate the breadth of Jewish cultural experience. Just as we invite different Jewish historic figures into our sukkot, we can invite Jews from different geographic locations into our sukkot by cooking foods from those communities and discussing the customs, history and character of those communities.
I’m somewhat surprised, but I’m really looking forward to Halloween. Let me state up front what I don’t like. The candy is excessive. I still have a large bag hidden on a shelf in the back of the pantry of LAST YEAR’s candy that my kids lost interest in long before all the good stuff was gone. I also don’t love the gore and the death. I’m not a big fan of scary stuff in general and it seems to get gloomier each year. I also don’t love the idea that kids demand candy, it is bad enough when they do it at the supermarket check out there should be no need to encourage them.
This being said, I am excited nonetheless. And despite all my misgivings, without the candy, this holiday would be not have the same draw.
D'var Torah, Food History, Food Writing, Holidays, Jewish Culture, Opinion, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur
In a season filled with symbolic meanings, the question of whether to eat nuts during these days of repentence has advocates for the yeah and the ney. There are those who definitely avoid nuts of all shapes and sizes during these ten days. For some there is a deep symbolic meaning, as I mentioned in my Rosh Hashana post, as the Hebrew word egoz has a numeric value 17 (when you add up the value of each letter) [thanks to Devo for the correction] that is equal to that of the Hebrew word of sin (het) and as sin should be avoided so too should nuts.
I don’t personally find this to be the most persuasive argument against nuts, as I suspect that if I looked long and hard I might be able to find other foods whose value was similarly negatively associated. But there is another school of thought that suggests that nuts should be avoided in this particular season because they can have a negative effect on our ability to sing. (Their husks and meats have a tendency to get caught in or dry up throats and so they are to be avoided in this season when our need to raise our voices to God is so essential.)
Looking into this matter, I came across some wonderful rabbinic teachings about nuts.
Rosh Hashana is all about prayer for the New Year; we sing it, we say it, we blow it and of course we eat it. The apples and honey aren’t just seasonal and don’t just taste good, they embody our hopes and wishes for the New Year. The blessing recited over this tasty combo gives focuses our attention towards a sweet new year “May it be Your will, our God and God of our ancestors, that we be renewed for a good and sweet year.” This approach to eating is what I like to think of as culinary prayer, a form of you pray what you eat whereby imbibing sweet foods will help fill you body and soul with that same quality.
In my menu plan for Rosh Hashana there is a carrot salad with pomegranate seeds and pomegranate molasses, a honey nut cake (somewhat controversial but you have to read on to find out why), stuffed dates, pumpkin pastries and a bean salad. Not merely culinary fancy – though I’m hoping it will taste good – my menu is based on an ancient series of food omens that women have cooked through the ages. It’s true, long before your grandmother was making brisket, the rabbis of the Talmud were already making menu suggestions.
The newest thing in Jewish education? A cup of coffee with two teaspoon of Zionism. The Israeli sugar company Sugat has come out with single serving bags of sugar that sport pictures of “The Fathers of Zionism” important Zionist thinkers and early statesmen. In a somewhat repetative fashion, the package promises that they are, compact, easy to use, elegant, infomative and educational. When Theodor Herzl prophesized a futuristic, normalized Jewish state, it is hard to believe he imagined the marketing possibilities of ideological sugar packs.
Are the people who serve your fries getting sick leave? Does your barista get paid for overtime? Are the dishwashers getting paid minimum wage?
The folks at Bema’agalei Tzedek are working to make sure that everyone entering a public eatery in Israel can answer these questions. Their social seal program, which is active in five Israeli cities, takes the idea of fair trade one step further, assesses the whether or not a restaurant or catering hall is living up to its social responsibilities towards it employees and patrons. The social seal sticker makes it easy for customers to do a quick ethical check before they scan the menu.
If eating seasonally generally makes me feel somewhat closer to nature, I’m not quite sure what to make of the Israeli phenomenon of seasonal yogurts. In late August, when we arrived for the year, just ahead of the High Holidays, I saw an ad for pomegranate flavored yogurt. I was excited to try it but didn’t get around to looking for it for a few weeks and when I did it wasn’t there. I assumed it was just another one of those things that one needs to be ‘really’ Israeli to be able to find in the supermarket. I settled for strawberry, mango, and chocolate sponge cake flavors instead.
But a few more weeks passed and the chocolate sponge cake was gone.I was sad but grabbed some apple pie and some citrus mix which I was mostly sure I had not seen before. (again I was not sure how much was my lack of supermarket skills and how much was reality!) Upon inspection, I noticed to the bright yellow sticker on the side which announced that these flavors were “New! Temporary!” It finally dawned on me that like the fruits and vegetables, yogurts in Israel are seasonal.
