Category: ashkenazi
The Blessings of a Black Radish: On Abundance, Scarcity, and COVID-19
March 27, 2020
One Passover a few years back, I took it upon myself to try one of the most shtetl-tastic foods out there: the black radish. It’s rarely found in the United States today aside from occasional appearances around Passover and Rosh Hashanah, but the black radish is the most ancient type of radish, as well as […]
Panadería Brooklyn: Meyer Lemon Curd Rugelach
January 22, 2019
Everywhere my grandmother lived, she planted a Meyer lemon tree in her backyard.
Turnip the Heat with Alsatian Lentil Soup
December 31, 2018
I don’t know about you, but this winter’s been hitting me pretty hard. It started early, and while there haven’t been any REALLY freezing days yet, the cold (and the dryness) are pretty relentless. All I really want to do is curl up under the covers with a nice warm bowl of soup. (What, you […]
Flaming Tea: The Wildest Hanukkah Tradition
December 10, 2018
You know about latkes (even, if you’ve been keeping up with Poppy and Prune, obscure varieties like chestnut and brain). You know about sufganiyot and its predecessors, from awwame to zvingous. But have you ever heard of the flaming tea ceremony? No? Me either, until a few years ago when I was leafing through Phyllis […]
Lazy Latkes: The Poppy and Prune Guide
November 26, 2018
Hanukkah is one week away! But let’s say you’re not in the mood to lovingly recreate three historic latke varieties from scratch this year—what’s a Jewish foodie to do? Don’t worry. I got you. The fact that I did lovingly recreate three historical latke varieties last week notwithstanding, I’m actually a pretty lazy cook myself […]
Latkes Before Potato: Taste-testing Cheese, Buckwheat, and Chestnut Pancakes
November 19, 2018
Nothing says “Hanukkah tradition” better than a crispy potato latke, right? WRONG! Even though potato latkes have come to dominate the Hanukkah food scene here in the US in the twenty-first century, they’re actually a relative newcomer to the Jewish culinary repertoire. The potato, a native of South America, didn’t even arrive in Europe until […]
From Colewort to Cabbage: The Incredible Evolution of Cabbage Noodles
November 5, 2018
Cabbage is one of the world’s oldest cultivated vegetables, and even today it remains one of the most widely grown and eaten. But turns out the original cabbage was pretty different from the green (or red) stuff you might find in your basic 21st-century coleslaw. Wild cabbage—which, as I just learned in the course of […]
Potatoes Are the New Chestnuts: German Chestnut Crème from The German-Jewish Cookbook
October 15, 2018
Orange is the new black. Thursday is the new Friday. 30 is the new 20. Potatoes are the new… chestnuts?! Yes, while our sad Eastern European forefathers and mothers were busy chowing down on, like, black radishes and parsley root, their Southern and Central European brethren were living the (comparative) good life on a chestnut-based […]
Vegetables You Should Know: Sorrel Noodle Kugel
October 3, 2018
A while back ago, I shared with you the first of my go-to sorrel recipes. Now I’m back with the second (and, thus far, only other): sorrel noodle kugel. This is kind of at the other end of the spectrum from that sorrel hummus, but it’s equally delicious in its own way. Where the hummus […]
Medieval Honey Cake, So You Can Party Like It’s 4979
September 17, 2018
When I first got the idea to start a Jewish food history blog, I imagined I’d spend a lot of time attempting to reconstruct old recipes. That’s not exactly how things have gone down, but I figured for my first post of 5779 I’d go big with a bake from the way-back archives: medieval honey […]