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The 100 Most Jewish Foods
A Highly Debatable List
Contributors
By Tablet
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“Your gift giving problems are now over—just stock up on The 100 Most Jewish Foods. . . . The appropriate gift for any occasion.”
—Jewish Book Council
“[A] love letter—to food, family, faith and identity, and the deliciously tangled way they come together.”
—NPR’s The SaltWith contributions from Ruth Reichl, Éric Ripert, Joan Nathan, Michael Solomonov, Dan Barber, Yotam Ottolenghi, Tom Colicchio, Maira Kalman, Melissa Clark, and many more!
Tablet’s list of the 100 most Jewish foods is not about the most popular Jewish foods, or the tastiest, or even the most enduring. It’s a list of the most significant foods culturally and historically to the Jewish people, explored deeply with essays, recipes, stories, and context. Some of the dishes are no longer cooked at home, and some are not even dishes in the traditional sense (store-bought cereal and Stella D’oro cookies, for example). The entire list is up for debate, which is what makes this book so much fun. Many of the foods are delicious (such as babka and shakshuka). Others make us wonder how they’ve survived as long as they have (such as unhatched chicken eggs and jellied calves’ feet). As expected, many Jewish (and now universal) favorites like matzo balls, pickles, cheesecake, blintzes, and chopped liver make the list. The recipes are global and represent all contingencies of the Jewish experience. Contributors include Ruth Reichl, Éric Ripert, Joan Nathan, Michael Solomonov, Dan Barber, Gail Simmons, Yotam Ottolenghi, Tom Colicchio, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, Maira Kalman, Action Bronson, Daphne Merkin, Shalom Auslander, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Phil Rosenthal, among many others. Presented in a gifty package, The 100 Most Jewish Foods is the perfect book to dip into, quote from, cook from, and launch a spirited debate.
Excerpt
Carciofi alla Giudia
By Paola Gavin
Carciofi alla giudia—"artichokes Jewish-style"—is probably the most famous dish of Rome's Jewish cuisine. The crispy artichokes, fried in olive oil, were created in the ghetto in the sixteenth century and are traditionally served to break the fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Unfortunately, it is one of those dishes that can taste sublime or like a piece of old leather, depending on the skill and knowledge of the chef and the variety of artichoke used. In Rome, it is always made with cimaroli—violet-tinged artichokes that are very tender, with no fuzzy chokes and, most important, leaves without thorns. My advice is, if you cannot get ahold of cimaroli or similar tender artichokes, don't waste your time. Having said that, according to the Talmud, "one may trim the artichoke and akivrot [cardoons] on a festival"—so Jews have been enjoying artichokes for millennia, no matter how difficult they are to prepare.
Carciofi alla Giudia
Serves 4 to 6 as an appetizer
3 lemons: 2 cut in half, 1 cut into wedges
2 pounds (10 kilograms) baby artichokes (about 16)
Olive oil, for frying
Salt
Fill a large bowl with water. Squeeze the 2 halved lemons into the water and add the spent halves to the bowl, too. Set the bowl near your work area.
Clean the artichokes by removing their tough dark outer leaves. When you get to the light-colored interior leaves, trim the stems of whatever tough bits there may be and trim about ½ inch (1.5 centimeters) off the tip. Drop each cleaned artichoke into the prepared lemon water.
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil over high heat. Fill a large bowl with ice and water and set it nearby. Add the artichokes to the boiling water and blanch for 15 seconds, then dunk them into the bowl of ice water and let cool.
Remove the cooled artichokes from the bowl and shake off excess water. Using a paring knife, cut down the middle of each artichoke from the top along the length of the artichoke. When you get through the leaves to the base, stop. Rotate the artichoke and make a similar cut perpendicular to the first cut, making an X. You should now have four quadrants of leaves.
Pry the leaves open, creating a flower-like shape. Place the artichokes stem-side up on a paper towel–lined work surface or baking sheet to keep the leaves open. Allow to dry for at least 20 minutes or up to 2 hours.
When ready to cook, heat 2 inches (5 centimeters) of olive oil in a medium pot over medium-high heat to 350ºF (177ºC). Using tongs, place an artichoke in the hot oil, stem-side up, holding it against the bottom of the pot for several seconds to fry the leaves open in place. Release the artichoke, then repeat with 4 to 5 additional artichokes, taking care not to overcrowd the pot. Fry the artichokes for about 2 minutes more, moving them around in the pot and rotating them onto their sides to cook evenly. Transfer the fried artichokes to a paper towel–lined baking sheet and season with salt. Repeat to fry the remaining artichokes.
Serve with the lemon wedges alongside.
Challah and Other Sabbath Breads
By Leah Koenig
The Sabbath dinner table carries a hefty symbolic weight on top of its four legs and freshly pressed tablecloth. After the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the rabbis transferred many of the rites once performed there—lighting candles, blessing wine, washing hands—to the home table. At the center of this domestic altar is bread: loaves meant to represent the "showbread" that was once placed on the altar as a divine offering. So each Friday night, as people lift and bless their bread before tucking into the festive meal, they are—knowingly or not—reenacting an ancient priestly ritual.
Traditionally, Sabbath tables are graced with at least two loaves of bread (lechem mishneh), which symbolizes the double portion of manna the Israelites gathered before the Sabbath while wandering in the wilderness. Today, lechem mishneh most widely refers to challah—eggy loaves that are wound into thick braids and baked until tender and bronzed. Challah's twisted shape dates back to fifteenth-century Austria and southern Germany. Before then, Sabbath bread was typically made from fine white flour but did not have a specific shape or name. It is there, Gil Marks writes in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, that Jews adopted the shape of a Teutonic solstice bread, braided to resemble the "long, matted hair" of a malevolent demon called Berchta or Frau Holle. "Although European Jews certainly did not worship or even to a large extent know anything about [her], they assimilated the attractive bread," Marks writes. That Jews bless a bread originally modeled after a pagan witch is irony at its most delicious.
Challah is closely related to berches (also called water challah), a braided loaf enriched with mashed potato instead of eggs, which German Jews bless on Shabbat. In other parts of the world, Sabbath bread takes on other forms. Ethiopian Jews prefer dabo, a soft, honey-sweetened loaf spiced with turmeric and nigella. Tunisian Jews, meanwhile, eat bejma, a yeasted bread formed into doughy triangles, and Moroccan and Syrian Jews traditionally decorate their Sabbath tables with whole wheat flatbreads called khubz 'adi.
Egg challah has transcended the Sabbath table and also the Jewish community. Its plush texture makes it the ideal bread for French toast, a quality that delis and diners across America have capitalized on. But at its core, it's a bread with serious soul.
Genre:
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“Amusing, yet serious.”
—New York Times
“[A] love letter—to food, family, faith and identity, and the deliciously tangled way they come together.”
—NPR’s The Salt
“Your gift giving problems are now over — just stock up on The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List. This book will help deal with one of life’s most persistent problems, the appropriate gift for any occasion — hostess present, Hanukkah, engagement, birthday, or get well.”
—Jewish Book Council
“Wholly original. . . . The whimsical, hilarious, nostalgic and, at times, serious collection reminds me of a boisterous dinner party with all your favorite foodies and chefs coming together against the backdrop of a laid-back panel on their experiences with Jewish food. . . . A real treat.”
—Hadassah
“A perfect gift for this Passover—gorgeous and funny and well written. . . . The 100 Most Jewish Foods is also unafraid of the ways in which food can be a window into history, culture, and politics.”
—Bklyner
“An entertaining choice for anyone interested in how food reflects a people and helps connect them to shared traditions.”
—Baton Rouge Advocate
“The most culturally and historically significant Jewish foods. . . . Yes, it’s highly debatable—that’s the point.”
—Epicurious
“Downright entertaining . . . the most interesting cookbook we’ve read this year.”
—Fleishigs Magazine
“You, me, your grandparents, your nosy neighbors and your jealous non-Jewish foodie friends all need to pick up a copy of The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List. . . . This ain’t just a cookbook. It’s also a history lesson, a culinary compendium and a gorgeously photographed gourmet grab bag. By dissecting various meals or foodstuffs, this book has captured the very essence of what it means to be Jewish.”
—Baltimore Jewish Living
“You don’t have to be Jewish to love The 100 Most Jewish Foods. . . . Funny, emotional, memorable, and filled with gemutlichkeit, this is a book for any reason and all seasons.”
—Booklist, starred review
“This entertaining and informative reference brings the rich traditions of Jewish foods to life.”
—Publishers Weekly
- On Sale
- Mar 19, 2019
- Page Count
- 256 pages
- Publisher
- Artisan
- ISBN-13
- 9781579659066
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