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JWOW
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
FEBRUARY 24, 2022
COOKBOOKS: DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS GENRE My husband and I were considering our Shalach Monos theme options. I wanted to make Indian food. I figured we’d start with Hodu (India) and celebrate a different country each year until we arrived at Kush (Ethiopia). Based on the idea that Esther, as wife to King Achashveirosh, was the queen over 127 provinces, we’d be set for the next 126 years! My out-of-town Chevrusa (learning partner) arranged for me to borrow a few of her fascinating cookbooks on Indian Jewish cooking. Who knew there was such a thing!? I learned about the Jews of India and garam masala, an authentic Indian spice, and how hard it was to obtain kosher versions of those traditional Indian spices, especially in Cleveland. So, we toned it down (a lot!) and sent a much simpler saffron rice and a small bottle of flavored vodka. Those Indian cookbooks certainly broadened my cultural horizons.
As the well-known adage goes, “The way to a culture’s heart is through its stomach.” The ethnic variety of the traditional cooking in our Jewish world astounds the mind. From the range of the different Sephardic communities to the variety of European ones, cookbooks of each cuisine open our minds and open our hearts to Jews of all stripes. They can unify us as a people as we each become familiar with other sections of our community through the foods that we eat. If we are researching our own history, we will connect to our own past. If we research that of others, well then, we will connect to them as well. The Spice and Spirit cookbooks or today’s equivalent, the Bais Yaakov cookbooks - are often our trusty kitchen companions. We find recipes that our families have enjoyed for generations. Sometimes, the book simply falls open to the pages of those triedand-true recipes, the ones we go back to again and again. You know which pages – the ones with the oil stains and
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the little crumbs stuck on. A cookbook can also focus us on life’s small precious moments. A cookbook may remind you of a special food you ate years ago. With special people. On a special day. During a special conversation. When we were dating, my husband and I were eating at the then-trendy kosher vegetarian Greener Pastures. Do you remember that restaurant? It was near Bloomingdale’s on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I was waxing eloquent about the title recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, a cookbook from the proprietress of The Moosewood Restaurant, of counter-culture fame. This was very trendy at the time. Did I say that already? To be honest, I was going on and on -- about how cute the broccoli florets would look on a bed of brown rice. He seemed to hesitate and then he asked me, “Do you know how to make chicken soup?” “Yes.” I smiled. “That’s good.” He also smiled. And looked relieved. He also promised me he would try anything I make once. Even the stranger foods. And he has! A soup cookbook will warm our hearts on a cold winter day. The very picture of steam from a tureen, with the ladle at-the-ready, evokes the hearth, the table, the aroma … the opportunity to gather with family and with friends …the ultimate comfort food. Do you enjoy your soup piping hot? And, in the summer, reading the recipes of iced desserts will cool our bodies, in an exceptionally non-caloric way. That refreshing feeling reminds us of summer vacations, with no care, and all the time in the world.
A newer, more modern cookbook is fun-to-read, creative and inspirational. A cake-in-a-mug cookbook combines the seemingly contradictory values of today – speed and comfort. How very 2022! We may dream about producing the fantastic pictures in the new cookbooks and we don’t even have to lift a finger. Dreams can be satisfying, even the ones that don’t materialize. We will internalize the creativity of the cuisine, the styling, the design. A cookbook can bring us to tears as it evokes the aromas of our youth. “I had no idea even how to make a good soup. I do not remember exactly what my mother looked like, but I remembered the smell of her chicken soup. I worked on it till I felt I had my Mom in my kitchen.” From the “Holocaust Survivor’s Cookbook” Are “Cookbooks” a genre of literature? I have been thinking about this since JWOW! hosted “The Joy of Books”, an interactive Zoom program in the fall. If cookbooks were just compilations of lists of ingredients with directions, then perhaps not. But cookbooks are so much more. Food is an essential part of our identity, our emotions and our moods. And, therefore, cookbooks enrich our lives. By helping us explore culture and history, they connect us to who we are, who we were and who we aspire to be. I vote “yes!” Cookbooks are a genre of our literature. Happy reading! Sara Brejt, a current resident of Baltimore and a teacher at Women’s Institute of Torah, has worked as an attorney, in kiruv and as a career coach. She is a co-founder of JWOW!, Jewish Women of Wisdom, a community of frum midlife women, which can be accessed at www.jewishwomenofwisdom.org
