Look what Google just recommended to me!!!!
Cookbooks are always a wonderful gift, says the cookbook author. But seriously, anyone who loves to cook, bake, ferment or ...
I already own (and love) Shabbat and Portico.
But I am OBSESSED with the rest and must acquire them immediately.
Top of my list is Love Japan because LOOK AT THIS BEAUITFUL BOWL OF MATZO BALL RAMEN!!!!!
We hear a lot about Jewish people in Europe and MENA, but we do not hear a lot about Jewish culture as it blends with East Asian cultures, and thatās a shame. Not just because it erases the centuries of Jewish populations there, but also because there are plenty of people of mixed decent. People who may not have come directly from Jewish communities in East Asia, but people who have a Japanese Father and a Jewish Mother, for example. Or people in intercultural marriages. These are all real and valuable members of the Jewish community, and we should be celebrating them more. This cookbook focuses on Jewish Japanese American cuisine and I am delighted to learn more as soon as possible. The people who wrote this book run the restaurant Shalom Japan, which is the most adorable name Iāve ever heard. Everything about this book excites and delights me.
And of course, after that, Iām most interested in āKugels and Collardsā (as if you had any doubts about that after the #kugel discourse, if you were following me then).
This is actually written in conjunction with an organization of the same name devoted to preserving the food and culture of Jews in South Carolina!
Iām especially excited to read this one, because I have recently acquired the book Kosher Soul by the fantastic, inimitable Michael J. Twitty, which famously explores faith and food in African American Jewish culture. Iām excited to see how Jewish soul food and traditions in South Carolina specifically compare and contrast with Twittyās writings.
Iām also excited for all the other books on this list!
A while ago, someone inboxed me privately to ask what I recommended for people to read in order to learn more about Jewish culture. I wrote out a long list of historical resources attempting to cover all the intricate details and historic pressure points that molded Jewish culture into what it is today. After a while I wrote back a second message that was much shorter. I said:
Actually, no. Scratch everything I just said. Read that other stuff if you want to know Jewish history.
But if you want to know Jewish culture? Cookbooks.
Read every Jewish cookbook you can find.
Even if you donāt cook, Jewish cookbooks contain our culture in a tangible form. They often explain not only the physical processes by which we make our meals, but also the culture and conditions that give rise to them. The food is often linked to specific times and places and events in diaspora. Or they explain the biblical root or the meaning behind the holidays associated with a given food.
I cannot speak for all Jews. No one can. But in my personal observation and experienceāoutside of actual religious traditionāfood has often been the primary means of passing Jewish culture and history from generation to generation.
It is a way to commune with our ancestors. I made a recipe for chicken soup or stuffed cabbage and I know that my great grandmother and her own mother in their little Hungarian shtetl. Iāll never know the relatives of theirs who died in the Holocaust and Iāll never meet the cousins I should have had if they were allowed to live. But I can make the same food and know that their mother also made it for them. I have dishes I make that connect me to my lost ancestors in France and Mongolia and Russia and Latvia and Lithuania and, yes, Israelāwhere my relatives have lived continuously since the Roman occupation even after the expulsions. (They were Levites and Cohens and caretakers of synagogues and tradition and we have a pretty detailed family tree of their presence going back quite a long time. No idea how they managed to stay/hide for so long. That info is lost to history.)
I think thereās a strong tendencyāaided by modern recipe bloggersāto view anything besides the actual recipe and procedures as fluff. There is an urge for many people to press ājump to recipeā and just start cooking. And I get that. We are all busy and when we want to make dinner we just want to make dinner.
But if your goal isnāt just to make dinner. If your goal is to actually develop an understanding of and empathy for Jewish people and our culture, then thatās my advice:
Read cookbooks.
