Zitat des Tages von Gil Marks:
Preparing foods from other Jewish communities is broadening. It's interesting to sample the foods of other Jewish communities and see what they developed.
In Judaism, almost every ritual entails either food or the absence of food. Yom Kippur, for instance, is the absence of food. Part of it is Talmudic, part of it is custom. So much of Judaism was bound up in dietary laws. So everything you ate - the very act itself - was part of religion.
Throughout history, particularly in the last 2,000 years, Jews have been key in adapting local foods to Jewish sensibilities and dietary laws and then spreading them.
Food is sort of like the Jewish sense of humor, a defense mechanism. It is one of the things that helped the Jews survive through 2,000 years of an often very harsh Diaspora.
To me, that aspect of life that most touches the everyday and celebrations is food.
In the New York metropolitan area, you can find Jews from just about every Jewish cultural community in the world.
There is a biblical injunction to tell your children, but the sages who created the Seder several thousand years ago understood that it had to be more than just speaking: that in order for something to connect so emotionally in human beings, it had to be relived.
My family is notorious for its sweet tooth.
Each Passover, I prepare all sorts of fancy desserts for my family and friends, often experimenting with adaptations of sophisticated modern fare.
Throughout history, Hanukkah was a relatively minor festival, but it's become very popular in America due to its proximity to Christmas.
If I'm doing an olive oil tasting, I would do a very lean bread: an Italian style or pita bread. You want the flavor of the oil to shine; you don't want the bread or anything else to mask it.
Although I generally avoid the cloyingly sweet wines, I have used them for poaching fruit.
Every holiday has unique fare and symbolic foods, but none as much as Rosh Hashana.
Judaism is not just a religion but a people, and the food and customs of one part of the people is connected to the other part of the people. They are part of a larger story.
The knish is a classic example of peasant food evolving into comfort food and even sophisticated fare.