This is the first of a three part series. Click here to learn how to win her new book There Shall Be No Needy.
I was recently invited to participate in a panel discussion (along with Nigel Savage of Hazon and Nell Geiser of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice) following the June 10 performance of Give Us Bread, a new play about the 1917 New York food riots, which were largely led by Jewish immigrant women.
Wartime food prices had reached levels that few families could afford, and thousands of women throughout New York took to the streets in protest. These women knocked over and set fire to pushcarts, while the police struggled to gain control of the crowd. The New York Times reported that, during a community meeting, “a woman appeared in the meeting room, followed by five little children, and forced her way to the speakers’ platform. She cried out that her husband earned but $8 a week as a tailor’s helper and that she was unable to buy enough food for her babies.” (“Pushcarts Burned in Riots over Food,” Feb. 20, 1917)
Food prices shot up overnight. Starvation threatened families from Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the Lower East Side to the Bronx. The city did nothing. A group of women came together to demand action. Boycotts accelerated into riots.
The year was 1917.
America has provided the chance for freedom and new life to the immigrants of Orchard Street in New York City. Yet fear moves through the community as food prices begin to rise. When it becomes impossible for a group of “everyday housewives” to feed their families, they must unite, because standing together, no matter how terrified you are, is more important than suffering alone. Using original text and source materials, Give Us Bread tells the remarkable stories of immigrant women, who provide a lens with which to examine today.
And the Jew and the Carrot readers have to opportunity to win FREE tickets to the show!
As Mia Rut’s recent post mentioned, this weekend’s Brooklyn Food Conference was a rip-roaring, inspirational, 1000+ person success – a true testament to the power of grassroots organizing and the vibrancy of the sustainable food world. For those folks who missed the conference, or are – for some odd reason – looking for even *more* reasons to be inspired, look no further than the recent article in Jewish Woman Magazine, which introduces readers to more than a dozen amazing and pioneering women who are changing the face of the Jewish environmental movement, from the ground up.
This week White Castle treated us to yet another problematic fast food burger commercial. The commercial features a person in a full body pig suit performing a highly sexualized dance on the stage of strip club. You can view the ad in all its BBQ-sauce money shot glory on whitecastle.com. You can channel your discomfort by reading this interesting article on the relationship between meat and gender issues, with some specific studies from, of all places, Israel.
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:
Many thanks to Julie Wolk for this guest post. Julie is co-founder of Wilderness Torah, a Bay Area organization using earth-based Jewish spirituality to help individuals deepen their connection to Community, Earth, Spirit and Self through celebratory land-based festivals (like Sukkot on the Farm, Pesach in the Desert and Shavuot on the Mountain), rituals, rites of passage, and experiential Judaism in the wilderness and agricultural contexts that are at the roots of our tradition.
I’ve just returned transformed after five days in the California desert with sixty fellow Pesach journeyers. The whole experience was so totally outrageous that it felt completely natural. Who would have thought that getting back to the land, connecting in community, praying and creating ritual, and taking time for ourselves could be such a transformative experience? Well, we did have an idea I guess…
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.”
I wish I had the nerve to be Lagusta Yearwood. Most days though, I perpetrate numerous small betrayals against my ideal self (calling myself “flexitarian” when I’m really too lazy to go full vegetarian; recycling only when it’s convenient; etc.). Perhaps I haven’t fully grown into the Radical Me. Or perhaps it’s the opposite: the Radical Me is like my skinny jeans, an identity that I’ve outgrown, as I’ve been fattened and jaded by age… (your thoughts? Have you radicalized or softened with time?).
So, “what’s a Lagusta?” you might ask. She is equal parts vegan chef, political activist and spunky feminist. Oh, and Jewish to boot. I conducted an email interview with her. My questions are in bold, her responses follow. Join us, below the jump.
The first time I came face to face — or rather, spoon to mouth — with a bowl of cholent, at the age of 24, I had no idea what it was. While I was growing up in a nonobservant home, my family had no need for such a meal, a hearty stew that simmers overnight in a pre-lit oven or slow cooker without transgressing the prohibition against cooking on the Sabbath. But as I learned (and tasted) more, I discovered a dish that can wrap even the coldest late-winter afternoon in warmth and comfort, and one that makes a valuable addition to any Jewish cook’s repertoire.
The custom of honoring the Sabbath with a hot meal is revered in Jewish tradition, but the Torah complicates things by stating, “You shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day” (Exodus 35:3). As early as the fourth century, Jewish cooks began to perform culinary acrobatics to circumvent this halachic conundrum — finding ways to get hot food on the table without lighting a new fire. Renowned cookbook author Joan Nathan wrote in her book “Jewish Cooking in America”:
“For centuries, on Friday mornings [Jews] would assemble [their stews]. The dish was covered with a cloth or mixture of flour and water to form a crust. It started cooking on Friday before sunset and [was] left to warm all night over coals in a hot oven….”
A few months back on The Jew & The Carrot, we posted about an amazing Israeli social justice organization called Bema’aglei Tzedek, which created an ethical seal for restaurants called Tav Chevrati (social seal). The seal ensures that the restaurant provides basic rights to workers and also basic accessibility to customers with physical disabilities. Started only a few years ago, the Tav Chevrati seal is now on a third of all restaurants in Jerusalem, and is expanding to Tel Aviv and other cities.
I recently had a chance to speak with Bema’aglei Tzedek’s Executive Director, Dyonna Ginsburg (pictured at left) and here her thoughts on the socio-economic gaps in Israeli society, the power of public pressure on the Israeli government, and why she only eats in restaurants with the Tav Chevrati seal.
Watching Chef Sandy Stollar cook is kind of like having front row seats at the Daytona 500. Born in Queens to a Colombian-Argentinean Jewish family, Stollar embodies all the fast-paced energy of a native New Yorker, and all the credentials to make it in the big city.
Unlike most (ahem, all?) kosher chefs, Stollar trained at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and shined her knives at some of the best non-kosher restaurants in New York City (the Russian Tea Room, Osteria del Circo, etc.) More recently, she started her own private chef business called The Kosher Tomato, which caters to Jewish individuals and families across New York and New Jersey. She also teaches cooking classes at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts in Brooklyn – a school which houses the first accredited kosher culinary training program in America.
Stollar, who was recently featured in the “Heeb 100,” is undoubtedly one to watch in the coming years. Below, she shares which foods she misses most from her pre-kashrut days, her thoughts on why kosher cuisine has such a sketchy reputation, and her favorite ways to make a nice piece of chicken.
Over the last 30 years, Americans have grown accustom to food being (falsely) cheap and abundant – so the recent sticker price hikes have likely come as a shock. But one doesn’t have to look very far into the past to find other times in our country’s history when food was neither cheap, nor abundant.My 85-year old father, for example, grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s. While he does not recall ever feeling overwhelmingly hungry (his father, a minister, was often paid in eggs and other food, and his mother was known for making a chicken stretch in twenty ways), he does remember the backyard garden his family relied on for a substantial portion of their fruits, vegetables, and other food.
Oh friends, I feel a rant coming on. Animal rights organization, PETA, has gone and done it again. And by “it” I mean advocate for animal welfare, while simultaneously being entirely offensive to women.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently mailed a letter to Ben & Jerry’s, suggesting that they replace the cow’s milk dairy in their ice cream products with human breast milk. They got the idea from a Swiss restaurant owner who plans to replace 75% of the cows milk at his restaurant with milk from nursing mothers.
According to a letter sent by PETA’s Executive Vice President, Tracy Reiman: “Using cow’s milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer’s health…[insert some cruel facts about the conventional milk industry here]…Won’t you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow’s milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.”
PETA absolutely and frighteningly misses the point.
A few months back on The Jew & The Carrot, we 
