The
Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking: 200 Seasonal
Holiday Recipes and Their Traditions
Authors Phyllis Glazer,
Miriyam Glazer Pub. Date: March 2004
Hardcover
- First Edition, Harper Collin. 334 pages
Where
did the tradition of eating Kreplach on
the Purim originate? Why were pomegranates, of all fruit,
adopted for the Shehecheyanu on the second day of Rosh Hashana?
All of this information is compiled in The Essential Book
of Jewish Festival Cooking by sisters Phyllis and Miryam
Glazer.
Some holiday foods, say the Glazers, have rabbinic sources.
For other foods it is a question of putting your prayers
where your mouth is, like the Rosh Hashana honey cake for
a sweet year. Other foods have become part of the tradition
by word association. Carrots, say the Glazers, are associated
with Rosh Hashana because the Hebrew word "gezer" is reminiscent
of "gzar din" - we should be judged for a good year.
These and many other bits of Jewish food lore make this
cookbook not only a treasure of Jewish traditions and a
collection of great recipes, but a truly great read. The
recipes are conveniently organized in menus and the ingredients
are highlighted in red print. Each dish is gender-coded
"M" for meat, "D"and "P" in the menu.
What foods are associated with each festival? Hamentashen
on Purim is a no-brainer. But what is the food tradition
for Sfirat HaOmer? This book will have you cooking barley,
chickpeas, lentils and olive oil from Pesach till Shavuot
to mark the grain offering in the Temple during Sfirat Haomer.
What is the traditional main course for the Yom Kippur Seuda
Mafseket? How about the chicken that you used for the kapparot.
A little like eating humble pie, Glazer says.
Like the Jewish year, The Essential Book of Jewish Festival
Cooking starts with Pesach. There is a treasure of 31 Pesach
recipes in 40 pages. Spring Vegetable Kugel (pg 29) is my
pick, made with a matza base. "…instead of the rib-sticking
potato kugel we were inspired by our mother to make this
colorful, tasty, and healthy kugel, fragrant with vegetables."
Ok. I'm in.
The Glazers quote liberally from their mama's Ashkenazi
kitchen, but Sephardic folk traditions are not neglected.
Maimonides, we are told, suggesting sipping honey water
as a 12th century Viagra. Find this tip in the Tu B'Av chapter,
the holiday of love.
The foods of the holidays, say the Glazers, are closely
entwined with the agricultural growth cycle in the Land
of Israel. The fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices that
abound in Israel at the time of year were integrated into
the lore of the holiday. During the exile from Israel our
food traditions continued to be linked to the land of Israel.
This is a nice thesis, but I am not so sure about some of
her examples.
The focus on dairy foods for Shavuot, according to Glazer,
comes because after the rainy Israeli winter there was plenty
of grazing land. The cows produce their richest milk just
in time for Shavuot. Well, that's not what they taught us
in Yeshiva.
Regardless of the reasons, the Shavuot chapter offers an
impressive collection of recipes. For this holiday, zman
matan Torah, there is a recipe for Biblical yogurt, Biblical cream
cheese, and Biblical butter. These are all purer forms of the foods
we eat today. There is also a nice variation on my favorite
sweet noodle kugel for Shavuot and plenty of rich dairy
desserts.
This Jewish tradition foodbook/cookbook is an important
addition to your collection. This is a book that you'll
use in the kitchen or you'll read curled up with on the
couch and discover a thing or two about Jewish food traditions.
Phyllis
Glazer is an American-born food journalist based in Tel-Aviv
Israel. She is the author of several cookbooks that have
been published in Hebrew, German and Italian and has contributed
to the Los Angeles Times, Saveur, and the Jerusalem Post,
among many other publications. She appears frequently on
television and radio in Israel and has been a guest on programs
in the United States, India and the United Kingdom. Phyllis
teaches regularly at 4Chef in Tel Aviv and Taste in Raanana,
Israel.
Miriam Glazer is a professor of literatiure at the University
of Judaims in Los Angeles, where she also studies for the
Conservative rabbinate and teaches in the Ziegler School
of Rabbinic Studies. She is the editor of several books,
including Dancing on the Edge of the World:Jewish Stories
of Faith, Inspiration and Love.
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