Comments on: Would it still be Thanksgiving Dinner if we ate turkey every night? http://jcarrot.org/would-it-still-be-thanksgiving-dinner-if-we-ate-turkey-every-night/ Jews, Food, and Contemporary Issues Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:07:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 By: The Jew and the Carrot » Blog Archive » Local food for Tu B’Shevat? http://jcarrot.org/would-it-still-be-thanksgiving-dinner-if-we-ate-turkey-every-night/#comment-90 The Jew and the Carrot » Blog Archive » Local food for Tu B’Shevat? Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:39:41 +0000 http://jcarrot.org/would-it-still-be-thanksgiving-dinner-if-we-ate-turkey-every-night/#comment-90 [...] Option Two: Tu B’Shevat is not the time for local. You can celebrate any number of different things on Tu B’Shevat, from mysticism to feminism, but the main thrust of the holiday is trees, agriculture, and the land of Israel. It is quite remarkable how eating food from another place can transport us to that place: sugar dates, pomegranates, almonds… with every bite we are closer and closer to lounging at the Dead Sea. This is a good thing. It’s a question of kodesh and chol, of what we do on ordinary days and what we do on special days. If you’re looking to make your Tu B’Shevat seder unique – buy fruit from Israel. Seek it out! If your grocery store doesn’t tell you where the fruit comes from, ask the people who work there. Chances are you’ll find peppers or fresh citrus from Israel; you’ll certainly be able to find canned olives. [...] […] Option Two: Tu B’Shevat is not the time for local. You can celebrate any number of different things on Tu B’Shevat, from mysticism to feminism, but the main thrust of the holiday is trees, agriculture, and the land of Israel. It is quite remarkable how eating food from another place can transport us to that place: sugar dates, pomegranates, almonds… with every bite we are closer and closer to lounging at the Dead Sea. This is a good thing. It’s a question of kodesh and chol, of what we do on ordinary days and what we do on special days. If you’re looking to make your Tu B’Shevat seder unique – buy fruit from Israel. Seek it out! If your grocery store doesn’t tell you where the fruit comes from, ask the people who work there. Chances are you’ll find peppers or fresh citrus from Israel; you’ll certainly be able to find canned olives. […]

]]> By: esther http://jcarrot.org/would-it-still-be-thanksgiving-dinner-if-we-ate-turkey-every-night/#comment-16 esther Sun, 24 Dec 2006 17:49:16 +0000 http://jcarrot.org/would-it-still-be-thanksgiving-dinner-if-we-ate-turkey-every-night/#comment-16 Some more reflection on this topic, as I've thought about this very issue. Very often if not always the quality of the 'ethnic food' that we eat here is very different than the actual food as it is prepared in its home country, seasonally. The fact that we can get any type of food, any time of year, suggests a huge disconnect with how that 'ethnic' food is cooked and when, back in its etnnic home. For example, restaurants use extremely low-quality and even rancid/toxic oils, vegetables and fruit taht were brought from 3,000 miles away or more, grown with lots of pesticides, milk and cream and dairy that is from overworked, tired, and antibiotic-ridden cows, and lots more we can all think of. So there is a big difference between the home-made pasta made of fresh flour, fresh eggs, and garden-grown tomatoes and onions, and some fresh cream right from the cow, with a dollop of fresh butter on home made sourdough, and the stuff we get when we go to our local Italian joint, or even a high-end version of that. Quality is the difference. Why is it that the diseases we are all too familiar with now, were not prevalent when people were eating eggs, butter, milk and cheese, meat and bread a century ago? Just look at the quality of the ingredients and when they are actually in season. We might prefer to cook *our* ethnic food at home ourselves, and go out for mystery dinners less often. Some more reflection on this topic, as I’ve thought about this very issue. Very often if not always the quality of the ‘ethnic food’ that we eat here is very different than the actual food as it is prepared in its home country, seasonally. The fact that we can get any type of food, any time of year, suggests a huge disconnect with how that ‘ethnic’ food is cooked and when, back in its etnnic home. For example, restaurants use extremely low-quality and even rancid/toxic oils, vegetables and fruit taht were brought from 3,000 miles away or more, grown with lots of pesticides, milk and cream and dairy that is from overworked, tired, and antibiotic-ridden cows, and lots more we can all think of. So there is a big difference between the home-made pasta made of fresh flour, fresh eggs, and garden-grown tomatoes and onions, and some fresh cream right from the cow, with a dollop of fresh butter on home made sourdough, and the stuff we get when we go to our local Italian joint, or even a high-end version of that. Quality is the difference. Why is it that the diseases we are all too familiar with now, were not prevalent when people were eating eggs, butter, milk and cheese, meat and bread a century ago? Just look at the quality of the ingredients and when they are actually in season. We might prefer to cook *our* ethnic food at home ourselves, and go out for mystery dinners less often.

]]> By: Leah Koenig http://jcarrot.org/would-it-still-be-thanksgiving-dinner-if-we-ate-turkey-every-night/#comment-15 Leah Koenig Sun, 24 Dec 2006 16:09:47 +0000 http://jcarrot.org/would-it-still-be-thanksgiving-dinner-if-we-ate-turkey-every-night/#comment-15 I appreciate what you're saying here (especially the part about those amazing Shabbat dinners, which I've been lucky enough to witness first hand) - but I want to offer an addition/slight disagreement to Nigel's assertion that the cuisine Americans eat from other countries is always their holiday/ritual foods. That's right to a degree, but the more significant difference, I think, has to do with portion size. An Italian family might sit down to a weeknight dinner of pasta with a heavy cream tomato sauce - but it is unlikely that their plates would be piled with the full pound of spaghetti that the average Italian American restaurant would serve to each customer...or that the spaghetti would be drowning in the sauce as opposed to highlighted by it. I appreciate what you’re saying here (especially the part about those amazing Shabbat dinners, which I’ve been lucky enough to witness first hand) - but I want to offer an addition/slight disagreement to Nigel’s assertion that the cuisine Americans eat from other countries is always their holiday/ritual foods.

That’s right to a degree, but the more significant difference, I think, has to do with portion size. An Italian family might sit down to a weeknight dinner of pasta with a heavy cream tomato sauce - but it is unlikely that their plates would be piled with the full pound of spaghetti that the average Italian American restaurant would serve to each customer…or that the spaghetti would be drowning in the sauce as opposed to highlighted by it.

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