Cookbooks: An Addendum
On Shabbat, my friend Ev showed me Hip Kosher by Ronnie Fein (2008). Subtitled “175 Easy to Prepare Recipes for Today’s Kosher Cooks” and sporting a cover photograph with an almost Asian feel, it struck me that this is a contemporary version of my old Not Chopped Liver! cookbook.
Telling us that “you don’t have to be Jewish to eat or cook kosher food,” the author points out that kosher ingredients and kosher prepared foods are easier to find in American grocery stores than ever before. Most kosher families nowadays cook and eat (almost) the same foods that are available to all Americans. To illustrate the point, Fein tells us, “My grandson Zev and the other children in his preschool class were asked to bring in a dish that reflected their ethnic backgrounds. Zev picked challah, but only after finding out that the two other Jewish children in the class had already decided to bring his first choices: chicken nuggets and apple pie.” That incident reinforces what we are hearing from others during our research for the Chosen Food exhibit: the repertoire of foods that Jews consider to be typically “Jewish” has been undergoing change, especially among the children and grandchildren of baby boomers.
Although recipes similar to the ones in this book can be found in non-kosher cookbooks I already have on my shelf, it inspires me to update my list of regular dishes, which has become decidedly routine. Lamb Oreganata, looks tasty and easy, Broiled Salmon with Pineapple-Mango Salsa sounds tempting, and Stir-fried Brown Rice with Turkey and Mushrooms (made with curry powder, for some reason) could be interesting.
Here’s the Pineapple-Mango Salsa (the fish is simply brushed with olive oil, salted and peppered, and broiled or grilled. Fein provides a helpful footnote on the various kinds of salmon available for purchase.):
2 cups diced fresh pineapple
1 cup chopped mango
1/2 cup chopped red onion
2 TBS minced fresh mint
2 tsp minced fresh ginger
½-1 tsp minced fresh chile pepper such as serrano
2 TBS lime juice
1 TBS honey
Salt to taste
Place the pineapple, mango, red onion, mint, ginger, and chile pepper in a bowl and toss ingredients to distribute them evenly. Add the lime juice and honey and mix well. Sprinkle with salt. Let rest for at least 15 minutes. Serve with broiled or grilled salmon.
Let us know how it comes out for you. But more important, how does the Hip Kosher approach compare to the way you usually cook? Does Fein’s contemporary approach to kosher cooking surprise you? Or have you long been finding interesting recipes here and there and “kosherizing” them? On a regular, day-to-day basis, what is the dish you cook most often?
Cookbooks: Jewish Do-It-Yourself Manuals
I got married in 1977. Those were the days of the Jewish Catalog (four volumes of D-I-Y Judaism perfect for the Aquarians whose Hebrew school education had failed) and a back-to-our-roots itch that just had to be scratched. My groom and I had decided we would be keeping kosher, and when our families on both sides finished freaking out, they gifted us a small pile of kosher cookbooks. New ones. As far as I know, there were no family heirloom kosher cookbooks in the kitchens of our parents or grandparents.
We received Jennie Grossinger’s The Art of Jewish Cooking, published in 1958 but still a standard in 1977, and The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook by Anne London and Bertha Kahn Bishov, a 1971 edition of a book first published in 1952. I still have these books. The Grossinger is a bit mildewed and the dust jacket of the American-Jewish Cookbook is battered, but I rarely opened either one. Flipping through them now, not a water spot or food stain can be found.
We were also given a three-volume set of Ruth and Bob Grossman’s French-Kosher Cookbook, a Chinese-Kosher Cookbook, and Italian-Kosher Cookbook (first published around 1963-64). I no longer have these books; I gave them away long ago to make room on my cookbook shelf for something else. But I’m sure I never used these either. I disdained their cute recipe titles like “Tuna Luck Shen Gro Sing Guhs” or “Foh Nee Shrimp Puffs” (Chinese), “Chicken Oregante con Hutzpah” (Italian), and “Alte Coq Au Vin” or “Knish Lorraine” (French) that disappointingly hid the same dishes found in other kosher cookbooks. This was the late 70s, we were baalei teshuvah, and our attraction to Jewish practice had nothing to do with the Yinglish of our grandparents.
Mostly, however, these cookbooks went unopened because they represented the way our parents cooked. Just as we Jewish Catalog-inspired Jews wanted to reinvent Jewish observances, our generation also wanted to reinvent Jewish meals.
Reinvention was in the air. In 1978 we bought the brand new book, Not Chopped Liver! The Kosher Way to Cook Gourmet. This all-fleishig (and pareve) book made lavish use of then-novel non-dairy creamer and pareve sour cream for recipes such as bifteck au poivre, beef stroganoff, and moussaka. That made us feel sophisticated for a while, but we knew this “chemical” stuff really wasn’t good for us. In 1984, we discovered Helen Nash’s Kosher Cuisine:: Over 250 Gourmet Recipes for the Modern Kosher Home. Nash groups many traditional Ashkenzi favorites such as gefilte fish, potato kugel, chicken soup and cholent in a back section on holiday cooking, and sprinkles a few others throughout, but the book also includes instructions for kosher versions of bouillabaisse, risotto, “Beef in Red Wine with Shallots and Mushrooms,” stir-fried vegetables, and a host of other international recipes that can be made by kosher cooks. Finally, here was a Julia Child for the kosher kitchen.
Kosher cooking has changed a great deal in the last thirty years. We watch our cholesterol, reducing the delicious fat content from Ashkenazi favorites. We “kosherize” almost any recipe with pareve chicken-flavored bullion, TVP versions of “ground beef,” “sausages,” and other meat look-alikes, soy or rice milk or the old non-dairy creamers. We’ve all discovered exotic cookbooks that teach us about Indian, Thai, Middle Eastern and other cuisines that depend heavily on vegetables.
And we now have fabulous kosher cookbooks available to us. With breath-taking reach, Claudia Roden’s Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkind to New York (Random House, 1996) introduces us to dishes from Jewish communities throughout the world. Moreover, I have found that Roden’s recipes are written in such a way as to make them very easy to follow.
I have not cooked from Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America (Random House 1998), but I love reading it. Her mix of historical and personal anecdotes make this a very entertaining cookbook. Likewise, I have not yet tried the recipes in Jayne Cohen’s Gefilte Variations (Scribner 2000), but I’m intrigued by the way she has updated traditional favorites in the style of California nouvelle. Susie Fishbein’s concern for elegant presentation—in such books as Kosher By Design: Picture Perfect Food for the Holidays and Every Day (Artscroll 2003), Kosher by Design Entertains (2005), and more (there are now seven volumes in the series)—recalls the sensibilities of Gilded Age German-Jewish cookbooks, but these are fully modern and fully kosher recipes enhanced with eye-popping food photography.
This little review of my personal cookbook shelves comes as I’ve been learning about the history of Jewish cookbooks for our Chosen Food exhibition. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, in , “Kitchen Judaism” (1990), her seminal essay on Jewish cookbooks of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries and Laurence Roth (“Toward a Kashrut Nation in American Jewish Cookbooks, 1990-2000”, Shofar, 2010) have pointed out the ways in which cookbooks reflect the interests and anxieties of their time. Scholars agree that the cooking of a community reveals so much more than a collective decision on taste.
The books I’ve described above, and so many others, with their admonishments about proper nutrition, suggestions for sophisticated hospitality, and interest in the cuisines of far-flung communities trace changes in American eating patterns that have also affected Jews. They reflect the increasing seriousness with which we take our meals, and hint at the meanings that we invest in food. Indeed, cookbooks that preserve traditions while integrating the newest tastes offer a kind of do-it-yourself manual for being Jewish in today’s America, an updated Jewish Catalog.
My own list of cookbook titles is paltry in comparison to those of you who are passionate collectors of cookbooks. We’d like to hear about your cookbook collectioin. What do you collect? Why do you find cookbooks so interesting? How does your collection of cookbooks fit into your life? Send us a picture (kfalk@jewishmuseummd.org) of yourself surrounded by your collection and we may post it on the Chosen Food website (coming soon) or include it in our exhibition!
Over at the JMM blog we talk about: Lunch!
If you’re interested in food, you might want to check out our sister blog today for a bit of post-mortem on the JMM lunch table by our fabulous associate director Anita Kassof!
Click on the photo to go directly to the post!
Rosh Hashana at the Okin House!
Rosh Hashana at my house is always a family affair; everyone has their specific tasks and knows just how to do it. (Even our guests have specific assignments: Audrey makes the kugel, Jimmy carves the turkey, Leslie makes sure that there is challah with and without raisins) My mom started the soup, brisket and desserts in advance, but it’s always a race against the clock to see if we will be done on time for the guests.
The downstairs freezer is packed!
Almost everything on the Rosh Hashanah menu is something that we’ve been making for years, so there are very few recipes to consult. The one thing we use a recipe for is dessert –even though we all know exactly how to make it we like to check the measurements.
This recipe card is very well used — and perfect with just about any fruit.
This year our “big change” was swapping the green beans with almonds with grilled asparagus. (It’s only taken my mom 3 years to remember that Swedish Fred is allergic to all nuts!)
Daisy wonders, Do Jews ever eat Chinese for Rosh Hashana or is that strictly a Christmas tradition?
5 pounds of onions!
While my dad, sister and I are at services, my mom and husband start in the kitchen. Eric’s main task is to keep my mom on schedule! Once the turkey goes in the oven, its time to peel potatoes & chop onions.
Carrots, sweet potatoes (peeled & chopped by Eric), apricots,
lemon and whole sticks of cinnamon go in the pot for tzimmes.
The “traditional'” new year’s pizza!
After morning services, its tradition for us to stop at Luigi’s for pizza. This way we aren’t tempted to “eat the profits” or spoil our appetite with something too heavy.
My jobs: chop the vegetables, make the stuffing and mushroom gravy
(Yup, a little ginger is the secret ingredient!)
Stirring up the mushrooms and shallots for the gravy is one of my favorite activities. Probably because I just love to stir and mix — basically, play with my food!
My sister’s job is to make the matzo balls.
My mom likes to add some “color” so there is carrot and parsley confetti in the mix. It is a family tradition to use my mother’s Grandma Candy’s brown bowl. (It also gets used for charoset at Passover.)
Mom always makes a “model matzo ball” so that they are uniform in size.
It doesn’t look like there is enough room in the pot for all of the matzo balls, but they are super light and fluffy.
And just in case we don’t have enough soup, mom’s got another pot started!
A lot of the talk in the kitchen sounds like this, “Where’d you put the….” Here my parents are looking for various ingredients in the pantry cabinet and the refrigerator.
Check out the ancient spices on that spice rack. I swear that red food coloring was used to make Raggedy Anne’s hair red on my first birthday cake!
Daisy thinks things are smelling good in the kitchen.
A peek into the oven shows that the turkey is browning nicely, but could use a little basting.
Onions and cucumbers get sliced paper thin (without a mandolin!) for quick summer pickles.
Gefilte fish on a plate of salad. (Seems to be tomatoes missing from this picture! An oversight!) Eric and I have a nice little deal worked out: he gets my gefilte fish and I get his olives. This way everyone is happy.
Audrey knows that Jordana and I don’t like raisins, so she makes a raisin-free kugel just for us! Thanks Audrey!
Thanks to Eric’s time management skills, almost all of the food is ready when our guests arrive. Even more impressive, the table is set and everyone is showered and presentable!
Apples (macs for my sister, granny smith for me) and honey for a sweet New Year!
Tashlich on the bridge
Before the meal is served, we say the blessings. Jerilyn lights the candles; Jason blesses the wine and Jordana and I each cut a challah (one with raisins, one without. Are you sensing a theme here?)
Soup’s on!
Now that the turkey has cooled a bit (and everyone is ravenous) Jimmy carves the turkey.
Daisy stands by to make sure that all of the turkey goes onto the platter — and perhaps hopes that something accidentally falls to the floor.
Then everyone traipses back into the kitchen to bring in the food.
Eric stands by to help serve. I think the table looks a little barren, but there is plenty to eat.
Looks like everyone is enjoying dinner.
Eric asked my mother to cut back on the desserts. Usually there are at least 2 honey cakes, a fruit torte, something chocolate.
Plum torte. According to Jordana, the plums were pretty tart and needed some extra sugar. Remind me to tell you about the sugar-free cranberry sauce another time.
My dad goes crazy for the chocolate covered cherry flavored marshmallow twists!
He’s also very fond of teglich. Hard dough in syrup with maraschino cherries. I don’t get it.
Hours later, its time to clean up. Thank goodness my parents have replaced their dishwasher (after 3 attempts).
Jerry & my dad rinse and load the dishwasher.
The refrigerator is all packed up with leftovers from the meal.
Amina Harris: A New Take on Honey Cake!
Delicious honeycake…are you ready for the New Year?
Okay. Here we are and it’s almost Rosh Hashanah. I cringe when I think of the honey cakes I have been served over the years all in the name of Rosh Hashanah and honey. These cakes – should one call them ‘cake?’- are dark, greasy, hint of coffee, and very sweet. They are loaf-shaped so they should be used, much like our gentile counterparts do with December fruitcakes, as doorstops. The rich, elegant flavor of a light, sweet honey is absent in these cakes; they are an insult to honey and an insult to the Jewish New Year.
I wonder how many people are shaking their heads saying, “I LOVE that honey cake!” Simply – I don’t!
I am in the food business. I sell honey and a few other wonderful delights, but primarily honey. So I know my honey. I also love to bake and about 8 or 9 years ago I went on a quest to find a honey cake recipe that would taste like a wonderful cake sweetened with honey rather than an overweight bran muffin. I wanted a cake you could look forward to eating.
I’m no longer sure where I found the simple white cake, made with sugar, that I decided to use as my starting point. It might have been from Joy of Cooking or from the old Settlement Cook Book. I thought, “What could be easier?” All I had to do was come up with the right variety of honey in the right amount, and I would end up with something very delectable! It was!
What makes honey the RIGHT honey? For a light cake like this one, I focused on using a light colored and light flavored honey. I prefer honey that has not been overheated or filtered (this eliminates most supermarket varieties!). As suggested in the recipe below, I successfully tried selections that included Sweet Clover, Star Thistle, Fireweed or Orange Blossom. What makes each of these honeys unique is the topic for another post!
Some suggestions for your honey cake…
Try to find a honey produced and processed by a local beekeeper. Look at it and taste it. If the color is dark – and the flavor is heavy – don’t use it! Having trouble finding a great honey? Check out my company’s website: http://www.zspecialtyfood.com. Our honey (and all our products) is certified kosher.*Curator’s notes!
Once the cake was finished, it needed an equally delectable topping. Honey cake is baked for Rosh Hashanah so I decided a sliced and spiced apple topping would be the perfect complement. Use a tart, firm apple in the recipe below (skip golden and red delicious!).
I live in Davis, California and belong to a havurah – a group of about 12 families formed from within our local synagogue. At a Shabbaton in the foothills of the Sierra this past summer, one of our members suggested that our havurah make the honey cakes for this Year’s Rosh Hashanah Oneg. We started talking about the oily cakes we all had known, agreeing that such cakes were memorable only because we HAD to eat them once a year. I chimed in (how could I not?) to say that I would be thrilled to make the cake for the synagogue. I offered my recipe and the honey needed to make it. This year Bet Haverim will have a real Rosh Hashanah Honey Cake made with love and joy by the members of my havurah. What a treat!
The whole honey family!
I mentioned I am in the food business. My family owns a company called Z Specialty Food. Our Gourmet Honey Collection,™ with ten natural varieties, is Moon Shine Trading Company’s hallmark. This fall, just before Rosh Hashanah, our son Josh will be returning home to begin to learn all about our company with the hopes of making it his own one day. It will be the beginning of a wonderful New Year. Please send me your thoughts about honey cake, recipes and ideas. I’d love to hear from you!
Shana tova!
Yummy Honey Cake
This is NOT your traditional Rosh Hashanah Honey Cake.
It is light. It is delicious.
It is cake in the truest sense of the word!
1/2c. Moon Shine Honey (Sweet Clover, Orange Blossom, Star Thistle or Fireweed are all terrific in this recipe)
1/3c. melted butter or margarine
2 eggs
1/4c. sour cream or plain yogurt
1 t. vanilla
Mix honey and melted butter together. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla and sour cream or yogurt.
1-1/2c. all-purpose unbleached flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
Sift all dry ingredients together. Add the flour mixture to the honey mixture in about three parts. Stir the batter after each addition until silky smooth.
Like nuts?
1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans
Fold nuts into batter and pour into a 9″ greased cake pan.
Bake for about 1/2 hour at 350° or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Serve with this terrific topping:
2 c. sliced apples
1 T. lemon juice
2 T. butter or margarine cinnamon
1 T. Moon Shine Honey
Sauté the apples in the butter or margarine. Add lemon juice and cinnamon to taste. Cook until the apples are soft. Remove from heat and add the honey. Stir well.
Spoon over slices of Yummy Honey Cake.
*To check out some local Maryland honey, try the Honey Directory or the National Honey Board’s Honey Locater! And here’s an interesting group for making your own!
*Interested in reading more about honey and kashrut? Check out this Star-K Online article and this Ohr Somayach column for more information and discussion!
“Hava” Cow at Hava NaGrilla by Rachel Ellis and Brittney Baltimore
Photos by Brittney Baltimore and Rachel Ellis
What do you get when you put two rabbis, a cow, a fire, and lots of enthusiasm together in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania? Summer interns Rachel Ellis and Brittney Baltimore set out on a road trip Sunday, June 6th to find out.
The Second Annual “Hava NaGrilla, Kosher BBQ Contest and Family Fun Day” brings together 500 barbecuers and barbecue fans from Philadelphia and beyond.
But if it’s barbecue, where’s the pig? Traditional barbecue from the South is all about pork, so Jewish barbecue enthusiasts need to be inventive. With no pig in sight, Jews barbecue other foods: chicken, ribs, and by far the most popular meat of the day … brisket.
Throughout the day some 15 teams competed to produce the best barbecue. Each team designed their own decorations based on a theme. Some highlights include: teams “Chag Wild,” “Fleishig Flashback,” “Glatt Meat?” and “BBQ 911 – Where’s the Fire?”
Clever names and amusing tent decorations made the day fun and family-friendly. But a kosher barbecue is not a kosher barbecue without a true love affair with meat. Just ask the “Hebrew Nationals,” who took home the most prized trophy of the day for Best Brisket. Their golden calf statue will surely hold a special place in their homes and hearts.
Two rabbis oversaw the event to ensure kashrut, to verify that all ingredients are certified kosher.
This way, the event was appropriate for Jews of all levels of religious observance. When asked her thoughts on a kosher BBQ, Adeona Rosin of Cherry Hill, NJ stated “I think it’s very important to have things in the Jewish community that everyone can partake in.” And of course, after contestants submit their food for judging, event attendees can taste their masterpieces.
Live music, a TastyKake eating contest*, and other carnival activities rounded out the day of enjoyment. Hava NaGrilla is a truly great place to be Jewish. The kosher culinary delight of barbecue brings the community together through friendly competition and family activities. According to Eric Wischnia of Elkins Park, PA, food has always been a part of Jewish culture and traditions. Eric summed it up well: “We have traditions that are built around the food that we make. …In addition to all of the other things that we’ve passed along, food is really, really important.” So get out your grill and get fired up for Hava NaGrilla 3 next summer!
Hava NaGrilla benefits Golden Slipper Club & Charities. Golden Slipper is a charitable organization that raises money to fund a children’s camp, a college scholarship fund, a center for senior citizens, as well as many other initiatives.
*Tastykakes became kosher (with much fanfare!) in 2004.
Chosen Food 