But it sure is good to be home. For those readers who missed my series of posts about eating in Vietnam, here’s a reminder:
Dog. Cat. Porcupine. Deer.
The ‘Lonely Planet’ Guidebook describes the Vietnamese people as “fiercly omnivorous,” and I couldn’t think of a more apt description. We are not uploading photos so I can’t illustrate this post properly but today we took numerous photos of a skinned pig’s head, pig’s feet, live goats tied to a back of a motorbike, same with live chickens in a mesh cage, pigs tied in tortuous ways, the list goes on.
Greetings from Vietnam, the most unkosher place on the planet (kosher-keepers, never, ever come here, unless you plan on packing a month’s supply of canned tuna).
Below the jump, I’ve posted a few photos that give you a taste of our (for us) shocking food experiences in Viet Nam. Warning - they’re graphic, so look with caution.
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I admit it - I live in a bubble. A tiny, insulated bubble within which everyone cares about eating ethically, and while some people eat meat and some don’t, just about everyone can agree about the merits of garlic-sauteed kale. Inside my cozy world, I forget that a whole other world exists out there - but this week, my trip over to Midtown Lunch reminded me.
Midtown Lunch - an entertaining (and eminently useful!) blog that seeks out the dining gems within the culinary wasteland that is Midtown Manhattan - profiles a different Midtown employee each week. It asks them questions like, “favorite/least favorite foods,” and “if you could work anywhere in New York (just because of lunch) where would it be and why?” This past week I was profiled. I was pleased to have the opportunity to give shout outs to Hazon and The Jew & The Carrot and excited to share my dietary habits with a bunch of related strangers.
Turns out, Midtown is not the most veggie or kosher friendly place on earth. Here’s a smattering of the comments my vegetarian and kosher focused profile received:
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Thanks to Elena Sigman for this guest post.
My Tante Toni (may her memory be a sweet blessing) made a dish for Purim, called noun, which I haven’t seen since the 70s. It was my favorite treat at her house: a plate of sweet, sticky pieces of noun cut in the shape of diamonds about one-and-a-half inches long. I guessed it was made of honey and chopped nuts and dates, but I was never sure of the recipe. It was dark brown and chewy and even though it was super-sweet it was also somehow tangy. The plate was passed around the table at the end of our Purim seudah, and it was quickly finished. The batches were never big.
Tante Toni had blue eyes that were two different colors because one was hers and the other was glass. The glass eye was bluer and bigger and her real eye was smaller and more hazel. At home in the evening, she wore a hairnet in order to preserve her coiffure from erev Shabbos, after she came home from the beauty parlor, until the next Friday morning when she’d get her hair done again. She was a smart, compact woman, barely taller than my child self, but she walked with a spine so straight no runway model could match it. She never tried to make chit chat with me. When I was a kid I would occasionally sleep over at her apartment on Friday night. After dinner she read the B’nai Brith Messenger cover to cover in her high-backed chair, and I read my book (Agatha Christie mysteries one year, Pearl S. Buck novels the next) on the couch until the Shabbos clock clicked off the light.
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Almost three weeks into our trip to Vietnam, and I’ve lost count how many times we’ve uttered the following statement: “That was the best meal we’ve had in Vietnam.” Undoubtedly, things have greatly improved since my last post - basically since we reached the central part of the country. Vegetarian restaurants are plentiful in Hue (well, maybe plentiful is an understatement, but we found and ate in two, both of which charged local prices and were excellent), and in Hoi An, where we are now, every menu we look at as numerous veggie options.
One of the highlights of our stay in Hoi An was an all-day cooking course, but I will wait until we’re home to write about it, so I can post corresponding photos.
So which meal was truly the best? It’s hard to remember them all. We continually go over them in our heads, comparing this salad and this entree and this whatever else. I will truly miss Vietnamese cuisine when we go home, even though good restaurants are not far from our home, but still, it’s just not the same.
My only regret is that we can’t make it to Ho Chi Minh City for Purim tomorrow night. There is a Chabad House there, and it would have been fun to celebrate there, but we couldn’t change our schedule around. So chag sameach. We will try to find something resembling Hamentaschen, but I don’t think a pork bun would suffice.
Long before “green Shabbat” referred to stacking biodegradable dishes on the synagogue kiddush table, “Corned beef and Cabbage” became my family’s green Shabbat.
When 6th grade ended and my best friend, Shauna Ritchie, returned to Ireland with her family, I was devastated. The summer passed and middle school started. Life continued, but not without the distinct sense that something important was missing.
Mid-March arrived, and with Purim over and Pesach still in the future, my mother decided she needed an occasion in the interim to bring our family together. In honor of Shauna, my mom declared the arrival of “Corned Beef and Cabbage” Shabbat - a celebration which, not-coincidentally, coincided with the week of St. Patrick’s Day.
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We’ve now been in Vietnam for well over a week. And while I continue to be, well, pretty much disgusted by the way animals are treated (today we saw a common site here; two live pigs tied to the sides of a motorbike — photos will have to wait until I’m home), I am also partially awed by the Vietnamese willingness to see food as it really is before they eat it.
As I mentioned before, it is nearly impossible to keep kosher here, or for me to remain a vegetarian. I was doing a pretty good job of it so far, but this morning, when served noodles for breakfast with bits of pork in it, our guide reminded our host that I don’t eat meat. We were staying at Ba Be Lakes in a “home stay,” with a family that is incredibly poor, and makes extra money by taking in tourists. Food is plentiful, though, here, even with the poor. Anyhow, after the reminder, he promptly made me my own noodles — in a bowl of chicken broth.
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Dog. Cat. Porcupine. Deer.
The ‘Lonely Planet’ Guidebook describes the Vietnamese people as “fiercly omnivorous,” and I couldn’t think of a more apt description. We are not uploading photos so I can’t illustrate this post properly but today we took numerous photos of a skinned pig’s head, pig’s feet, live goats tied to a back of a motorbike, same with live chickens in a mesh cage, pigs tied in tortuous ways, the list goes on.
Greetings from Vietnam, the most unkosher place on the planet (kosher-keepers, never, ever come here, unless you plan on packing a month’s supply of canned tuna). Read more »
Thanks to Maria Russakoff for this guest post, originally printed in the Arizona Jewish Post. It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything about Hazon’s Food Conference or the controversial goat schecting, but this piece is worth sharing.
The handwritten sign over the shiny percolator reads: “Chai tea - made lovingly with raw goat and cow milk, brewster honey, sadeh hot peppers, blackstrap molasses, black tea and ginger.” I haven’t the faintest idea where brewster honey comes from or what makes hot peppers “sadeh,” but I know from the first sip that I have come to a place that will nurture my stomach, mind and soul for the next three days. I breathe a contented sigh of relief, happy to have made it in one piece from sunny Arizona to the Connecticut Berkshires in the dead of winter, happy to be back at the Hazon Jewish Food Conference in its second year.
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The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Jeff Yoskowitz, has been on hiatus from the blog for a little while - but he has a darn good excuse. He is currently living on a kibbutz in Israel. On the one hand, like many kibbutzim, internet access is spotty so posting frequently is a challenge. But Jeff’s situation is a little different. Jeff is currently researching the (painfully ironic) pork industry in Israel. His kibbutz happens to house an industrial pork feed-lot, which means he’s spending most of his time hanging out with animals he’d never personally eat.
The little bit of time Jeff’s not researching pigs, he’s logging in his experience at his personal blog The Wet Sprocket. And while we understand his need to prioritize his web time, his stories are just too interesting not to share. To find out more about Jeff’s extraordinary daily experiences check out his blog, and read a few key (and quite graphic) excerpts below:
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Thanks to Rhea Kennedy of the You are Delicious blog, for this guest post and two delicious recipes.
As yet another plate of lamb careened toward the table, the scene at my boyfriend’s aunt and uncle’s Shanghainese house started to feel very familiar. I’d already discovered that latke-like potato cakes are a staple street food in Shanghai. Now, as my boyfriend’s aunt’s chopsticks moved from serving plate to individual bowls, clunking down pieces of meat in front of the people she’d decided should eat them, I realized that eating Chinese food on Christmas is not the only thing that bonds Jewish folks with our friends in the Far East.
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It’s winter in Vancouver — wet wet winter. Yet after just finishing a plateful of jerusalem artichokes, harvested this afternoon from my mom’s vegetable garden, sauteed with garlic from Stephen Gallagher (the amazing farmer who’s working with the Tuv Ha’Aretz site at Har El in North Vancouver) — I realized this isn’t the first meal I’ve had this winter where the food was fresh-picked.
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Throw it all off. Flee the restrictions. Leave it all behind — bacon is tasty. Or so says the pseudonym “Sarah” in Time Out New York’s article No religion, who purports to be an Orthodox-raised day school teacher in Manhattan.
So one Saturday morning, I went to the Botanical Gardens with my sister who doesn’t keep Shabbes. It was a beautiful day in May. And I remember thinking, Wow, Saturday is another whole day! You don’t only have to go to shul or sleep late and stay at home—you can do other stuff! And that was a huge epiphany. I went to California that summer. And that summer, I had a nonkosher steak taco on the side of the highway.
That was different—I was very nervous, and I ordered very nervously. And I sat at this picnic table on the side of the highway, and the guy to my right was eating a steak taco, and the guy to my left was eating the same thing, and I thought, I am a person. I am a regular human being. I am no longer a “Jew.” And it was so liberating.
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Last year, my freelancing musician boyfriend took a side gig teaching Hebrew school at a neighborhood synagogue on Sunday mornings. Like, 8:00am on Sunday morning. I understood his desire to teach and make some extra money, but it frustrated me to relinquish him to a bunch of strangers’ six-year olds during prime pancake and omelet hours. (Especially since, in my new mostly Shabbat observant life, Saturday morning was also out).
Luckily, all those early mornings paid off. The synagogue changed its Hebrew school structure - he now teaches during the week, clearing up Sunday mornings for New York Times reading, bluegrass listening, and - of course - brunch.
This morning, we celebrated with coffee in the Turkish tea glasses he recently found on the street (ahhh, Brooklyn!) and french toast. Made with leftover challah and organic free-range eggs, and topped with pears softened with agave nectar and ginger, it was french toast fit for The Jew & The Carrot. Check out the recipe below the jump.
Now that we have Sunday mornings free, we need more recipe ideas! I’d love to hear some of your favorite healthy (or more indulgent) brunch meals…
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I grew up in a non-kosher home. My Bronx-born father was strongly Jewish, but an atheist, and my mom was raised Catholic from ages 2 to 6; her life was saved by her gentile nanny in Poland during the Holocaust, who raised her as her own daughter. Her favorite food during that period: bacon. And even when she reverted back to Judaism, she never lost her love of all things pork.
My grandparents on both sides didn’t keep kosher either. Nor did any of the Jewish families we knew, except maybe one or two. I grew up eating ham and cheese sandwiches, and thinking nothing of it. Except for one great aunt in New York who kept a strictly kosher home, but ate pork and shrimp every time we went out to dinner with her, I had very little exposure to it.
Looking back, I wouldn’t change that. I was one of two Jews in my high school, always feeling very much “the other.” If I would have had to decline eating at a friend’s house because of kashrut, I don’t know how I would have managed. It just would have been another reminder that I am more “other” than I like to think.
But despite the fact that kashrut is pretty much still a non-issue for me, the fact that I care so much about where my food comes from is making me feel more and more kosher all the time.
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