I mostly came to The 100 Most Jewish Foods edited by Tabled editor-in-chief Alana Newhouse for the stories and less for the recipes. With so many recipe books and personal collections, I am rather interested on the stories behind a certain meal or another. But, as often happens during my intellectual journeys, in reality there were the recipes that kept me focused, more than anything else.
Let´s say it loudly...Most of the foods on the list are relevant rather for the East Coast Jews and Israeli, although it also covers other Jewish communities (Yemenite, Syrian, Persian, Georgian). There are chefs and restaurant menus and grocery store supplies that are mostly Made in America/Israel. Jews don´t eat too much bagel in Europe. There are foods that do not say anything to me, like the Hydrox or Bazooka Gum (although I used to crave for the cartoons attached to chewing gum). I am sad that there is no schnitzel although you may try to do an exercise of oral history with any yeshiva bochur to realize how important is this meal in their everyday life. I was happy to discover Adafina - a food of Spanish conversos - or Bialys or Labda and there is even an amba sauce recipe (the shortest way to my heart of stone). It breaks my heart there is not kokosh cake - but the babka the eternal enemy deserves a feature.
I got the irony of including on the list treyf, burnt offerings and used tea bags but well, would have prefer even more local diversity - what about some Ethiopian Jewish food recommendations?
I´ve learned, indeed, a lot of details about some less known foods and even some interesting details about how the Soviet-times food policies influenced the eating habits of Jews originary from the Soviet Union. For instance, the fact that the scarcity of food prevented them from a clear separation between Jews and gentiles.
The authors are chefs, writers, journalists, food afficionados. There is Shalom Auslander writing about chulent with the deep hate I would experience if will ever be requested to write about chopped liver and herring. The contexts and historical details are very important and I know enough now to conclude that most of the basic Askenazi Jewish foods do have, in fact, a German origin. I may add that the tastiest are Hungarian but what can you expect from a book misceviously omitting the queen kokosh...
What entinced me when I was feeling that too much information is just too much information is the writing style of the recipes. So many careful details about the directions are a great exercise of food writing. Recommended to have a look at even if you are not Jewish, Jewish food lover etc.
The project of The 100 Most Jewish Foods is largely revolutionary despite the controversies that are actually healthy for the discussion. I am planning at a certain point to cook myself some huevos haminados and maybe the Yerushalmi kugel recipe too, and hope to try in restaurants more of the foods from the list that I never or vaguely heard about. At the end of the day, Jews and food are a long story and every 100 foods counted are a blessing for the inquisitive soul.
All being written, time to prepare my Rosh Hashana menu which is a very far hysterical cry of any description of a trendy, fancy heimishe meals.
