In preparation for Rosh Hashanah I have been thinking about what I always seem to be thinking about …. namely food. This year I will be preparing meals for a yet to be determined number of family and friends (quite a feat in my tiny only semi-functional kitchen with a mini stove that has not worked properly in 2 years and burners that seem to go on strike every few weeks). As this New Year approaches, I’ve been mulling over the significance and symbolism of food in our tradition. For much of our collective history, Jews were an agricultural people, maintaining the delicate balance of give and take with the earth. They nurtured the land that sustained them and directly reaped the benefits of their labor. Even if you yourself were not a farmer, you likely knew your neighbor who was. Nothing was taken for granted, the rainfall, the fertility of the soil, the well preserved seeds passed down from generation to generation, the livestock, the fruit trees, and the grain - it was all very real to the Jews who came together to celebrate their feast days. Simply put, food was holy.

Needless to say, today our relationship with food is very different. We are much farther removed from our food sources. Even when we try to support local agriculture, we are not dependent upon it. We are part of a thriving global economy that makes almost anything available to us at anytime (at a price of course). So if there is a hailstorm in northern New York, or Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, and crops are decimated - most New Yorkers would not even notice. We have been conditioned to associate food with hermetically sealed plastic packaging instead of the soil, plants, and aimals that are the true sources of our sustenance (which is why I believe that so many people who do eat meat are sqeemish about witnessing an animal being slaughtered ala hazon’s schitah debate - or even making the mental association that their “cutlet” in all of its skinless boneless glory was once a living breathing bird)

What I have decided to do this Rosh Hashanah is to focus on the local and seasonal bounty and blend in the traditional foods symbolic of the goodness, sweetness, and fruitfulness we hope to be blessed with in the year to come. Read more »

Ask the average American to name a Jewish bread and there’s a 50% chance they’ll say bagels. But what is it that has made bagels a poster-child for Jewish baking? There is more than one answer to this question, the most popular attributing the creation of bagels to a Jewish baker living in 1683 Vienna. According to folklore, this unnamed man invented the bagel as a tribute to King John III Sobieski of Poland, who had saved the city from Turkish invaders with a daring cavalry charge. This story has led some to believe that bagels were originally U shaped like stirrups. However, other historians dispute this claim, arguing that the Yiddish word ‘beygal’ has been traced to 17th century Crackow, Poland. It is here that an official document of ‘Jewish Community Regulations’ - dated to 1610 - listed ‘beygals’ among the approved gifts for women in childbirth or midwives. These beygals were circular like our modern bagels, and the shape was thought to symbolize the eternal cycle of life, with no beginning and no end. Whatever their origin, what we do know for certain is that bagels were brought to North America by Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in the late 1800’s where they quickly gained popularity in New York City. Yet the bagel appreciation that is so much a part of American culture today didn’t begin to take shape until the 1950’s, when Lender’s began selling them to supermarkets. Hard to believe America’s love affair with bagels & cream cheese is only fifty odd years old, but there it is!

Click here to learn how to make bagels in your own home - it’s surprisingly easy! (Also don’t forget about the Baking and Books raffle - only 8 days are left!)