Category: Sabbath Food
Episode 7 – Gondi: A Persian Pleasure to Honor Shabbat
Jews everywhere have always reserved their best foods for the Sabbath. Gondi is a food that is unique to the Jews of Persia (Iran), and is almost exclusively eaten at Friday night Shabbat dinner. One of many examples of how Jews use cuisine to honor and show respect for their Day of Rest. Interview: Tannaz Sassooni Episode Notes
The German-Jewish Cookbook: From the Bookshelf
I have written previously about the effects of the Holocaust on Jewish cuisine, most prominently in the breaking of the chain of transmission from generation to generation. This resulted in a tremendous amount of cultural knowledge being lost. We do have a few books that can help us learn about pre-war European Jewish food. For example, there is a unique […]
Episode 3 – Chulent/Hamin: The Dish That Embodies Jewish Culture
The Shabbat Stew — chulent, hamin, dafina, and so many more — is eaten by Jews from around the world every Saturday, and I consider it the most Jewish Food in the world. Even more than the matzah of the previous episode. Here I explore the diversity of this dish, and trace its migrations through the Jewish Diaspora. I also […]
What is T’bit?
With the specific history of Jews in the Arab world, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century, but also over the preceding century, it is easy to overlook the fact that masses of Jews lived throughout the Middle East for millennia. This is of course reflected in the third major classification category of Jews, afer Ashkenazi and Sephardi: […]
From the Jewish Food Bookshelf: The Angel and the Cholent
Okay, so you can probably guess what first drew me to this book, right? Of all the Jewish Food books I own and have read, this one is unique. The Angel and the Cholent: Food Representation from the Israeli Folktale Archives, by Idit Pintel-Ginsberg is not a book of food history, nor is it a cookbook or a book analyzing […]
Media Updates
A few recent media updates for y’all… I had a lot of fun chatting with my friend Leah Jones for her podcast Finding Favorites, that explores people’s favorite things, without using an algorithm. Of course, for my favorite thing, we chatted at length about Shabbat Stews from around the world, the topic of the book I’m working on. So if […]
Kishke: Ashkenazi Comfort Food That… Sticks to Your Kishkes
Thinking about kishke (or kishkeh, kishka, etc.), so many questions spring to mind. How did it become so beloved in Ashkenazi cuisine? Who even thought it was a good idea to make in the first place? And why do so many Ashkenazi food names start with “k” (e.g. kugel, knaidlach, knish, kasha, kreplach, etc.)? While I may not have a […]
Get To Know These Yemenite Jewish Baked Goods
The Yemenite Jewish community is a very old one, and many of their foods are largely unique among Jewish cuisine. Among the many special Yemenite Jewish foods, perhaps their most distinctive are their baked goods. But due to the only passing familiarity that many Jews have with this community, a number of similar pastries and breads are often confused for […]
The History of Potato Kugel
Many of you may remember a post I wrote a few months back all about kugel. Well, if you thought there was nothing more to discuss on the subject, you were wrong! 🙂 My newest piece for The Nosher covers the entire History of Potato Kugel, and soon there will be another one coming out dedicated to Noodle Kugel. This […]
The Complexity of Jewish Food History
Studying Jewish Food history is interesting and exciting, especially when you uncover little-known facts and episodes, the more surprising the better. But as one of the most mobile nations in history (perhaps the most mobile), our people’s food has a history that is sometimes as complex as that of the nation itself. I recently encountered a great example while doing […]