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What is Jewish Food?

by · November 10th, 2009
Food Conference, Food History, Jewish Culture, Judaism, Kosher

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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?

Brisket, barches, blintzes, burekas, kugel, jachnun and shalet. The list of Jewish foods is endless. Since biblical times food has been a central part of Jewish life playing a role in Jewish life, culture and tradition. It would, for example, be impossible to separate out food from the story and observance of Passover. But in many ways Jewish foods have counterparts in other cultures. What for example is the real difference between a kreplach and a wonton? What distinguishes challah from brioche? While it is difficult to define specific foods as Jewish, it is easy to pinpoint some of the forces that have shaped Jewish cuisine. The triumvirate of Jewish food law, food based rituals, and Jewish history have worked together to shape Jewish foodways.

Many Jewish rituals require foods. Bread is blessed on Friday night. Maztah is eaten on Passover. Feasts and gifts of food are mandated to make the carnival festival of Purim truly festive. To celebrate the New Year, the Rosh Hashana table is set with edible omens for the year to come. Jews evolved recipes, such as hamantaschen and honey cake, to meet these ritual needs and enhance the festive nature of celebrations.

Additionally, there are many religious Jewish laws that deal directly with or strongly impact cooking and eating. The dietary laws, kashrut, are perhaps the strongest force in shaping Jewish eating patterns. Based on biblical verses, the rabbinic laws of kashrut prohibit the mixing of milk and meat not only within a given dish but within the same meal. Meat, fish and fowl were further divided into permitted and forbidden. No shellfish, no birds of prey, no pork. Prohibition against cooking on the Sabbath, meant that slow cook dishes became essential elements of the Jewish culinary repertoire.

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Working in these parameters, Jews throughout history adapted to the historic and geographic circumstances in which they found themselves. Jews worked with the foods and flavors of the regions in which they lived. Moroccan Jews roasted vegetables and meats with spices and fruits. Hungarian Jews made goulash –but without the cream. In places like Poland, poverty meant that potato dishes became a mainstay of the diet. Expulsions and migrations meant that Jews brought new foods and modes of preparations from one country to another. Artichokes for example arrived in Italy with Jews from Spain.

In America, most of what is known as Jewish food is the Americanized version of Eastern European Jewish cuisine. Some historically Jewish American foods such as bagels and “deli” have crossed over into the mainstream while others such as chopped liver have fallen out of favor. As we sit here today, eating together and talking food seriously in a Jewish context, we are playing a part in a long and evolving conversation about what it means to be Jewish.

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Questions for reflection:

  1. Is a blueberry bagel Jewish? why or why not? what about a bacon bagel?
  2. What is more Jewish? kosher sushi or ham and cheese on matzah?
  3. Is the fact that a food is made by or eaten by Jews enough to make it Jewish?

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9 Responses to “What is Jewish Food?”

  1. Julie Steinberg Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 1:28 am

    These are great questions and they get to a larger issue of what is Jewish? Is it culture, kashrut, tradition, family, geography? I think the answer is all of the above, and therefore the answer to your questions depends on each individual and their personal Jewish experience. I like to call it Jewish relativism, all puns intended.

    One other thing to consider is how foods interact with each other. For example, when I think brisket, I think Rosh Hashanah, which also means stuffed cabbage, mushroom barley soup, etc. For Passover I think matzo ball soup and gefilte fish. And who can make the hottest horse radish competitions. There is something about seeing the individual dishes as part of a larger meal or menu that defines them as Jewish, at least for me.

  2. Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 11:38 am

    Hi Julie,

    My thoughts exactly, questions about Jewish food do get to some of the core issues about what it means to be Jewish.

    A Canadian, the first time I was asked to bring something to American Thanksgiving, I brought matzah ball soup -my idea of something festive- and was laughed at all night. Time and place certainly do shift what is appropriate.

    Ruth

  3. Jonathan B-K Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    Ruth, this is great! At the risk of sounding flippant, here are my answers to your ?s, 1) No, a blueberry bagel is not Jewish, it’s goyish (in the sense of Lenny Bruce’s classic comic routine). 2) Ham and cheese on matzah is definitely more Jewish than kosher sushi. It so much better exemplifies the chutzpah characteristic of the way we Jews violate our own rules. 3) Yes and no. Prescriptions in Jewish texts, contexts, and intentions all seem to have something to do with making food “Jewish.” In that sense, even kosher sushi would be very Jewish to me, since there’s an intention to make something that something that could be trayf according to Jewish prescriptions accommodate Jewish law. Then there’s the miserable experience that my wife and I (who keep a kosher home – eat out vegetarian, kosher fish) once had going to an well known Italian restaurant in Providence whose chef touted his specialty was the cuisine of the Jews of Italy. We couldn’t eat anything there, even the dishes marked “Jewish.” They There was nothing vegetarian, the meat of course was not from a kosher butcher, and all the fish dishes were non-kosher seafood. Our “favorite” of the dishes we couldn’t eat was the “Venetian style calamari [squid] alla giudia.” There was something perverse to us about marketing food as “Jewish” when there was nothing on the menu that a kashrut-observing Jew could actually eat. Granted, not all “Jewish” food is kosher (much of it technically is not), but at least some of food served and labeled as such should be e

    Bottom line: There is both halakhically “Jewish” food (kosher), and culturally “Jewish” food (what Jews actually eat and prepare as a self-conscious expression of their Jewish identity), and I get annoyed when I’m served a meal where I can’t eat any of the latter.

  4. Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 3:15 pm

    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks so much for the insights.
    I have to ask, what makes a blueberry bagel out of bounds?

    Ruth

  5. Jonathan B-K Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    My ethnically Jewish instincts make me recoil in disgust from the blueberry bagel, much as I would from pastrami on white bread with mayo. ;-)

  6. Julie Steinberg Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    Ruth: I know what you mean about Thanksgiving. I had a friend come over to our house one year and at the end of the meal which of course included stuffed cabbage, pickles, the works, he said as nicely as he could, “You know, sometimes I forget that you are Jewish!”. It never occurred to me beforehand that perhaps not everyone elects to stuff the turkey with Challah.

    Jonathan: I have to disagree on blueberry bagels, but only toasted and with butter. They are a great treat. I also don’t mind hamentaschen with strawberry filling :)

  7. Jonathan B-K Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    Julie, I like hamentaschen with strawberry jam too. Also good is a filling made of black cherry jam and dark chocolate bits. But then chocolate is Jewish, and if it isn’t, it should be! ;-)

  8. malach hamovess Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 5:13 am

    Only 1 Jewish Food:
    Matza.
    All else is just a Jewish interpretation of local custom and diet.

    Our “traditional challah” is quite at home in any fancy bakery in Cracow; pickled herring is favored in countries where Jews are no longer welcome (if they ever really were).

  9. Alla Staroseletskaya Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 11:17 am

    Dear rabbi Ruth,

    I would like to talk with you about my future book. I think, you are a right person to talk. My email is
    alla4you@yahoo.com

    Thanks

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