Is That Kosher?

You bet it is.  Jewish Cooking In America by Joan Nathan  is one of my rare recent cookbooks.  Hah.  Recent?  It was first published twenty years ago and as near as I can tell it is still in print.

Marvelous cookbook, but it is so much more.  It is a history of the various waves immigrations.   Okay, here’s a tidbit about me.  I have a degree in History.  Sure I love food, but I also love history.  History of Food?  I’m in heaven.  I’ve barely glanced at this, but I plan on reading it cover to cover.   There is way too much information to relate in any detail, but I’m not actually reviewing most of these books, just trying to give you a brief glimpse into why I found it collectible.

Odd things attract me.  For instance, I opened the cover and there was a greeting card stuck inside, a Mother’s Day card for a Grandmother that started “If they had a Grandma Hall of Fame You’d Be There …”  and the card completes the thought.

Awwww … then off to the estate sale as soon as you are gone.  I am always amazed that families get rid of things like this.  Maybe everybody already had a copy?  It’s a great book, really.   And Grandma kept the card!

One of the really cool features is inside the front and back covers … a collage of ads in Hebrew.  Really interesting with a few identifiable products to those of us who don’t read Hebrew.

These ads complement some of the wonderful pictures inside the book, referencing past times and the origins of products and traditions and reflecting the history.  Yes, I’ll say it again. There is a lot of history in this book.  And there is a wonderful section with a lot of menus suggestions.

Here is one for an Eastern European Friday Night Supper.  What time should I show up?

I wish the wonderful interior pictures were of a quality that I could share, but I tried.  The cover photo is a good example, but most of the pictures in the book, although informative and a good supporting tool for the text, were grainy and did not work for this blog.  I guess you’ll have to buy the book.

My one other complaint, and this directly related to this blog mind you, it has nothing to do with the book, I mean, not really, is the fact that even the recipes have a great deal of historical lead-in.  The only recipes that don’t take a full page run over to the next page.  And most of the recipes are on the facing pages.  It makes it hard for me, your Crazy Cookbook Guy, to take a good picture of one of the recipes to share.  Small complaint.  I have the book to refer to.

Still, I managed to find a couple I could try to include but they may be hard to read in the photos I take.

Jerusalem Hummus needs no introduction.  I mean, who doesn’t like Hummus?  Well some people, but I love it and it fit and it has a good leading story.  So, buy some chick peas, and some tahini and enjoy!

I picked the other recipe to help illustrate the depth and breadth of this book.  It covers the entirety of Jewish immigration.  I mean, who knew Sephardic Jews came to New Orleans via Jamaica in the 1860s?  I didn’t.

If you ever come across a copy of this delightful book, I hope you pick it up. The history and recipes weave a story of struggle and success and faith and family.  Even though I got it for a quarter, I think I would have picked it up in almost any used bookstore I frequent, it is that good.

Shalom Y’all

People often call community cookbooks simply “Church” cookbooks but as I have pointed out in the past,  fundraising cookbooks encompass much more than just your neighborhood church.  Since two Jewish holidays have just recently passed, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I thought I’d share two Jewish community cookbooks today.  I just happened to pick up both of these at the last twenty-five cent sale.

THE LOOK! I CAN COOK BOOK was put together by the Sisterhood of Temple Beth Sholom in Hull, MA and lists the publish date as 1979-80.  It was printed by a commercial cookbook publisher but there is one irritating weakness:  there is no index or table of contents.  This is a substantial cookbook, 300+ pages … so good luck finding anything without the index.  The front of the book is also overburdened with those helpful hints the commercial cookbooks often have.  I don’t mind a few of those, but they have pages and pages of these things you have to flip through before you get to the first section of recipes.  I have always assumed these things are stock add-ins you can purchase when you order — they must have said, “we’ll take them all!”  I think organizations usually get a few of these things, weights and measures and such, to boost the page count when they are low on submissions.  At they managed to add a few personal touches, like a special section with Hebrew prayers.

As one would expect with a Jewish cookbook there are quite a number of Passover and other special recipes.  I found a few to share but chose a couple of the off-beat recipes from the passover section: vegetarian chopped liver and another for vegetarian lentil casserole.

They also had an interesting “intoxicated” barbeque sauce and a stereotypical “Foo Yung” recipe … there are a number of Chinese food variations in this book, not unlike other Jewish cookbooks I’ve seen.  Somewhere I have an entire Chinese cookbook put together by a Synagogue in NYC.

POT OF GOLD is the work of the Sisterhood of the Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac MD in 1976.  Although I usually love original artwork on these cookbooks, I have to say that the subject in the front cover drawing is worthy of almost any zombie movie.  Another irony is the candle on the cover … someone obviously took this to heart because the cover is stained by a fair amount of candle wax.  I never mind stains too much, as that is a good indication that the book was actually used.

This cookbook was locally printed and unlike the other one it has a a good table of contents and a very good index.  There are some personal stories included and like the other one quite a few Jewish specialties.

I’ve included one recipe for Hamentashen Dough and another for a quite interesting Caviar Pie.

Granted, neither cookbook is spectacular, but both have a good mix of common recipes along with cultural specialties.  Just your buck basic Church, er, uh, Synagogue Cookbooks.

Shalom, Y’all   (It’s both hello and goodbye)