It’s sort of funny when two worlds collide unexpectedly, especially when one comes to the aid of the other. Take for example my recent search for the perfect milk alternative. I don’t dislike good ol’ cow’s milk, nor am I allergic to it. But as an observant Jew, I often find myself at odds with the fridge staple, usually after I’ve just enjoyed a delicious turkey sandwich.  I am what some would call a Fleish-a-phobe: I rarely eat meat if I can avoid it out of dread for the five hours and one minute to follow, when I will be barred from my favorite treats: ice-cream, chocolate, cheese, milk-based pie, the list goes on.

And so I’ve spent some time searching for that perfect alternative, that wondrous, dairy-free concoction that will replace milk in my cookie recipe and help me whip up the perfect pareve pumpkin pie.  Recently, my best friend and I (with both health and Halacha in mind) unofficially took it upon ourselves to taste-test every non-milk available to us, from various brands of soymilk to the less orthodox (and rarely Kosher) hemp milk, with varying results.

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?

The deli has been in the spotlight these days thanks to the work of  David Sax.  You  may have read Joan Nathan’s piece in the New York Times about David’s upcoming book, Save the Deli, a call to action to revive deli culture.  Deli has been in most newspapers and on the radio now and is  the talk of the town in a way it hasn’t been since its golden years thanks to one man with a mission.

Early on for the Jew and the Carrot Leah Koenig wrote a post about David’s deli zeal during David’s journey to eat at delis around the world (which he also chronicled on his blog), and now the Jew and the Carrot is eager to announce a deli contest in the book’s honor. The winner will receive a free copy of Save the Deli.

Just leave us a comment on this post about your most memorable deli meal or experience and your name could be drawn to win a copy of his book.  Last day to leave a comment is Thursday October 22nd and the winner will be contacted the next day.

And while we’re on the subject, the Save the Deli book launch will be held this Monday at Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen.  It will be a great time with remarkable deli kitsch.

What does eating Jewishly mean to you?  What is Jewish food?  Does it reflect where you come from?  Where your family came from?  Dr. David Kraemer’s 2007 book Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages, recently published in paperback explores just those issues – and you can win a signed copy of his book!

Just leave us a comment on this post what is Jewish food for you and your name could be drawn to win a copy of his book.  Last day to leave a comment is Tuesday October 14 and the winner will be contacted the next day.

Date Honey from the Galilee

Here in the Galilee, a modest but auspicious ease in the heat is rousing us out of our summer torpor.  That and the impending preparations for Rosh Hashana – with the questions that are on everyone’s lips: who is eating where and preparing what?

Our holiday table, like most, will be graced with a plate of sliced apples, and a bowl of honey to dip them in – to remind our tongues and the pleasure centers of our brains how sweet life can and hopefully will be in the coming year. This year, however, the honey we’ll be dipping into will have a darker hue and more complex flavor than usual.

The research I’ve been doing on the origins and history of the seven species of the Land of Israel (wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey) has changed the way I understand this last and sweetest of the seven.

Nogah Reuveni, one of the pioneering scholars of Israel’s biblical agricultural landscape, astutely observed that, of all the seven species, there is only one which is not a plant or plant product (guess which).  While today, we think of honey as what comes out of a beehive, in ancient times, it referred to any sweet syrup made out of boiled-down fruit.

This blog is not the right place for it, but still, Roger Cohen has really gotten on my nerves over the last year or so.  His ranting about how wonderful Iran is and how great it is for the Jews there made me question my devotion to the New York Times.  His  piece “Advantage France,” in Sunday’s paper, about some of the differences between the French diet and the American diet, may have me beginning to change my mind.  I’ve only spent a few days in France, and only in Paris, but I’m guessing he’s exaggerating somewhat.  Nevertheless, the idea of Americans adopting any diet (or lifestyle, really) that required not only combining the ingredients and cooking them, but processing them to begin with (filleting the fish, making the pasta, etc) does sound beautiful and absurd.  The idea of connecting to food on a “gut” level and a geographic one far predates the terroir of which Cohen writes, at least in Jewish tradition.

Cross-posted at davka.org

Tiny Vial of Pharisäer

What do you put in your coffee?

Pharisees of course

Ever-sensitive to appearances of Jewish references in popular culture, I was a bit surprised to read Maureen Dowd’s headline in the New York Times on Sunday, July 19, 2009: “Pharisees on the Potomac”

I did not see any mention of late antiquity in her column and it was not until a number of hours later that I realized she had used the Christian allusion to Pharisees as hypocrites! Shame on her and shame on her editors (I wonder if William Safire saw the column). As the Wikipedia makes quite clear:

Exhibit on the History and Evolution of Wheat at growseed.org

The Heritage Wheat Conservancy is restoring the almost lost heritage wheats of the Old World and colonial New England.  After years of collecting rare wheats with traditional farmers in remote European and Middle Eastern villages, Eli Rogosa hosted a field day for researchers, flour companies and organic farmers last Thursday in Massachusetts.  96 varieties of delicious rare world wheat on the verge of extinction are thriving at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s Organic Research Farm.World heritage wheats, once the staple food of the western world, are on the verge of extinction. Modern wheats are bred for uniformity, and dwarfed so they don’t fall over under the intensive agrochemicals of industrial farms and for convenient harvest height.  However, modern wheats are lower in nutrition and flavor, and are not well suited to organic soils due to their stubby roots and short stalks.

According to Eli Rogosa, Founder of the Conservancy, “The best way to preserve the delicious ancient wheats are to market them to today’s discerning artisan bakers and gourmet chefs who seek the highest quality, nutrient-rich foods.”

(Originally published at My Jewish Learning)

Russians had been drinking tea for fewer than 175 years when Klonimos Wolf Wissotzky founded the Wissotzky Tea Company in 1849 at the age of 25. His timing could not have been better. According to The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide by Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss, it was not until 1689 that a “measurable exchange of goods and materials, including Chinese tea, began to flow between China and Russia.”

Prior to that Russians drank sbiten–a concoction of herbs and honey steeped in hot water. But by the late 19th century, tea was “hot” in Russia and Wissotzky–a young Russian Jew living in Moscow–quickly emerged as one of the country’s most prosperous tea distributors. Wissotzky’s was even named the exclusive tea supplier for the Emperor’s Court.

Sometime during all of the Agriprocessors brouhaha I heard that there had been a kosher meat boycott in 1902. I didn’t know anything about it until I just stumbled upon this article from the Jewish Historical Society: Bravo, Bravo, Bravo, Jewish Women! The Kosher Meat Boycott Of 1902.

The boycott was because the price of kosher meat had gotten too high, so Jewish women banded together, influenced by the labor and union strikes of their time, and organized to boycott kosher meat. Here’s how it went down:

A few years ago I came across a book called In Memory’s Kitchen, edited by Cara De Silva. The book collects recipes and food memories written by women imprisoned at the Czechoslovakian concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Though they were starving and undernourished, a group gathered to write a book of recipes and food memories to pass down to another generation. The recipes they included were for rich national foods of Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Austria, like fried noodles topped with raisins, cinnamon and vanilla cream, and traditional caramels from Baden Baden.

Food was constantly a topic of discussion, though there was little to go around, and certainly none of the luxurious ingredients a person would need to make many of the cakes and treats included in the book. Discussing and sometimes arguing about the best recipes and methods of preparation for various delicacies was comforting to the women who were starving, and they called this “mouth cooking.”

Black dots of strongly-flavoured vanilla
scraped straight from the bean, used for making jemma

Ashkenazim might associate Pesach with brisket, kneidlach, or matzah brei. Thanks to the Ashkenazi side of my family (my father’s parents and my paternal grandfather) we did grow up eating matzah balls of two sorts: kneidlach, and matzah kleis made with chopped parsley. But by far the most special thing about Passover for me has always been a Sephardic family recipe we’ve inherited from our grandmother, Tess Blackburn, who was born in Lisbon.

Jemma (pronounced ‘yemma’) is a thick, bright yellow, non-dairy custard flavoured with vanilla that we’ve always eaten on buttered matzah on Pesach or as a cake filling. It needs only a few ingredients, takes little time to make, and (at least in my family) disappears surprisingly quickly once served. Before giving you the recipe below, I thought I’d write a short digression exploring its possible culinary history.

Growing up, dried fruits were always a background food, something on the table that was never really meant to be eaten, unless you were a senior citizen. Their untouchable status might have had something to do with their reputation as an antidote for the withering effects of all that matzo on one’s gastrointestinal system. No matter how graciously they were laid out on how elegant a platter, they were often still there, all alone on a plate, long, long after the afikomen had been found. Sometimes when cleaning out the pantry we would discover something resembling a deceased mutant rodent, last year’s leftover dried fruits. Then, the California Dancing Raisins arrived, and dried fruit burst into my lifestyle as a hip purveyor of my emergent adult identity – an organic vegetarian who eschewed cultural materialism.