A gently self-mocking but telling anecdote that illustrates how fully Jewish food traditions have merged with mainstream American life relates how immigrants enjoy bagels and lox and a glass of tea for breakfast, first generation Jewish Americans have their bagels and lox with coffee, the second generation drinks espresso with the bagels and the third generation eats a ** croissant with cappuccino.
The story of that culinary assimilation is the subject of the just-published "Jewish Cooking in America" (Knopf, $30) by Washington culinary historian Joan Nathan. "Second generation Jews tend to get away from Jewish food," she explained during a recent interview. "And everything got bigger: Think of bagels. Cheesecake got richer. And things changed. There's jalapeno jelly rugelach."
As the author of "The Jewish Holiday Kitchen," "The Children's Jewish Holiday Kitchen" and "The Flavor of Jerusalem," Ms. Nathan knew quite a bit about Jewish history at the outset, yet she marvels at how much new information she learned from her " most recent research.
What she found most interesting, she says, is that the history of Jewish cooking in the United States "really is the history of American immigration. It's not just recipes." For this reason, Ms. Nathan says, she does not "treat recipes as isolated phenomena. Each one has a story that connects it historically and culturally to its Jewish past." Since the book contains more ++ than 300 recipes, that's a lot of history.
And she has structured the book, which is enhanced with marvelous old black-and-white photographs, so that in each chapter recipes go from the oldest and most traditional to the contemporary. Stories flow effortlessly from the wonderment of new arrivals at the turn of the century to an analysis of how the marketing of vegetable shortening and ready-made kosher products in the 1910s affected Jewish cooking to the influences of American regional ingredients on traditional dishes. And each chapter interweaves stories of the many cultures that make up American Jewry.
Nearly 6 million Jews live in the United States, so Ms. Nathan considers America the culinary center of the Diaspora. As she traveled and collected recipes from all over the country, she met Jews whose families came from all over the world and whose backgrounds form a microcosm of the chronology of Jews in America.
A variety of cultures
Her book reflects the culinary history of these wandering Jews, from the Sephardim (descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in the same year Columbus "discovered" America) who came here in the 17th century to the German Jews who followed in the 19th century to the Jews from Eastern Europe who immigrated at the turn of the century to the Asian and Russian Jews who
have sought refuge in the United States more recently.
Since Jews usually adopted the local culture no matter where they lived, Ms. Nathan says, and "because they have lived in so many places, there is no 'Jewish' food other than matzo; charoset (the Passover spread); or cholent or chamim the Sabbath stews)."
Still, to most Americans today, Jewish food is the food of Poland and Russia, according to Ms. Nathan. That's because more than two-thirds of American Jews have roots in those and nearby countries. And that's why most people think of "Jewish food" as bagels and lox, rye bread, gefilte fish, pickled herring, kasha, knishes, kugels and latkes. But almond puddings, egg custards, bean stews, hummus, burekas, falafel and ceviche are just as "Jewish."
Ms. Nathan got her recipes from such sources as old cookbooks and other printed materials, letters, journals and interviews with people all over the United States, including "the oldest Sephardic family in New York." Francis Lazatto of Chevy Chase found his Italian-Jewish mother's recipe for spinach pasta, and chef Roberto Donna of Washington's Galileo restaurant helped Ms. Nathan figure out how to make it. And Helen Coplan, of Baltimore, contributed a "wonderful" recipe for shortcut strudel.
With the Passover holiday on her mind, Ms. Nathan particularly recalls 95-year-old Isabelle Wile Goldman of Shreveport, La., who showed her how to make Passover fish with caper sauce, originally an Alsatian recipe made hotter with cayenne pepper.
Rockville caterer Sue Fischer shared her recipe for the farfel pilaf she served for Seder last year at the White House, the first ever held there. And from the owner of Cafe Crocodile in New York, a Greek Jew who lived in Egypt, Ms. Nathan got one of her favorites, a recipe for Passover fig cake.
Despite the push for assimilation, Ms. Nathan says, "holiday dishes are the last to go," and Passover, with its ceremonial Seders, is "the one holiday that American Jews, no matter how assimilated, have experienced." In her book Ms. Nathan mentions the Smelkinson family of Baltimore, which has been "holding an ever-growing family seder for the past thirty years with, at last count, ninety relatives." And, she points out, because of people's familiarity with Passover, "a lot of restaurants now have Seders."
A nature festival
The holiday we call Passover, the book explains, once was "a nature festival celebrated by nomadic desert Jews, with a roasted sheep or goat as the central food." In later centuries peasants "had a spring grain observance, the Feast of the Unleavened Bread where the unleavened matzo was served."
These festivals became "transformed into a freedom holiday representing more closely the history and social and spiritual strivings of the Jewish people," specifically the Jewish bondage in Egypt. Before the Exodus, God plagued the Egyptians with the death of their first-born sons but "passed over" Jewish homes.
Besides the retelling of the Passover story, a main feature of the holiday meal is the Seder plate with its symbolic foods. The zeroa or lamb shank bone, once associated with the nature festivals, symbolizes the passing over, Ms. Nathan explains, because the blood of lambs was used to mark Jewish houses and keep away the angel of death.
The maror or bitter herbs "represent the bitterness of slavery." The charoset symbolizes the mortar used by the Israelite slaves in their work in Egypt. The betzah or hard-cooked egg is a reminder of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. [or A.D.] as well a fertility symbol associated with spring rebirth.
The Passover story and recipes form only one chapter of Ms. Nathan's well-researched exploration of Jewish-American cooking, an exploration she hopes will preserve traditions in danger of extinction. "Since, unfortunately, many second-generation Americans have lost the recipes and the traditions of the past in their race for assimilation," Ms. Nathan writes about her five-year-long foray into Jewish-American culinary history, "it is my hope that this book will take them back to their roots and that all readers will try the new as they understand the old tastes."
Here's an eclectic Passover menu from Jewish Cooking in America that reflects the diversity Ms. Nathan's book celebrates so effectively.
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Ms. Nathan quotes the late Simon Schuchat of Baltimore wh said, "The other fish complained to God that shad was so sweet so He gave the shad all those bones to make up for it." This recipe, she says, "is accented by the spices loved by Simon Schuchat's descendants in Maryland." It includes Old Bay seasoning, a spice mix created in Baltimore by Gustave C. Brunn, a Jewish refugee who had been a spice grinder in Germany. Ms. Nathan notes, though, that Old Bay is not certified kosher.
Spicy gefilte fish with shad
Makes about 36
10 pounds whole shad, heads and tails removed and the shad boned (reserve heads, tails and frames)
16 cups water to cover fish bones
4 onions, peeled and left whole
1 stalk celery, left whole
1 teaspoon salt to taste
8 peppercorns
4 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning or to taste
1 pound boned perch or other firm white fish (optional)
3 large eggs
1/3 cup water
1/2 to 1 cup matzo meal
red horseradish
pickled beets
carrot slivers
parsley for garnish
Wash shad heads and tails and place with bones and water in a large pot. Add 2 of the onions, celery, 1 teaspoon salt, peppercorns and 3 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning. Simmer, partially covered, while preparing fish, about 1 hour.
Grind remaining onions in a food processor. Add fish and continue to process, pulsing on and off but not to mush. If you want a firmer fish ball, add the perch or other firm fish. Add salt to taste, the remaining teaspoon Old Bay or to taste, eggs and water and process briefly. Add 1/2 cup matzo meal and process; continue adding more until mixture feels tacky, not mushy. Refrigerate 15-20 minutes or until stiff enough to handle.
Strain broth. Return broth to pot and bring to a boil. Dip hands in cold water and mold fish mixture into rounds the size of a squash ball, about 2 inches in diameter. Place balls in broth and simmer, covered, 1 hour, adding more water if needed. Let fish cool in broth; then remove with a slotted spoon to a platter. Reduce the liquid by half, cool and refrigerate stock and fish separately.
Serve covered with the jellied sauce, horseradish, pickled beets, carrot slivers and sprigs of fresh parsley.
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Ms. Nathan calls these "a perfect example of American regional assimilation." Made the Alsatian or southern German way with broken matzo rather than matzo meal, these matzo balls include red pepper and scallions, called green onions in Louisiana.
Cajun matzo balls with green onions
Makes about 56 balls
1 cup diced green onions
1/2 stick ( 1/4 cup) pareve margarine
8 regular matzos
salt and pepper to taste
cayenne pepper to taste
2 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 matzo, toasted and rolled into fine crumbs, or 1/2 cup matzo meal, toasted and rolled fine
Saute green onions in margarine. Cool. Soak the 8 matzos in water until soft. Drain very well and squeeze out all the water. Place in the skillet with sauteed green onions. Add salt, pepper and cayenne and the 2 well-beaten egg yolks before the mixture gets too hot. Add parsley and cook, stirring constantly, until matzo is dry and it leaves the skillet. Cool.
Beat egg whites until stiff and fold in. Roll into balls slightly smaller than a walnut. Roll balls in toasted matzo meal. Lower balls gently with a slotted spoon into gently simmering salted water and simmer, covered, 30-40 minutes. Lift with a slotted spoon into bowls with chicken soup or drain and serve as a dressing with beef or turkey.
Sue Fischer's White House Seder chicken
Makes 8 servings
MARINADE:
4 2 1/2 tablespoons kosher-for-Passover Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons dry white wine
4 tablespoons kosher-for-Passover vegetable oil
2 tablespoons diced shallots
CHICKEN:
4 whole chicken breasts, boned
1/3 cup kosher-for-Passover vegetable oil
1/3 cup shallots, diced
20 medium shiitake mushrooms, sliced (about 2 cups)
16 sun-dried tomatoes
1 tablespoon potato starch
salt to taste
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup non-dairy creamer
Combine marinade ingredients in a small bowl. Mash chicken with a wooden pounder and let stand in marinade. Heat oil in a frying pan. Add shallots and mushrooms and stir until mushrooms are soft. Add tomatoes and potato starch if sauce has too much liquid. Add salt. Remove from heat.
Separate half the mushroom mixture to fill the chicken breasts. Place 1/4 of this mixture on one end of each breast and roll like a jelly roll on the diagonal so both ends are filled. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 25 minutes or until done. Cut each breast into 6 slices on the diagonal, allowing 3 slices per portion.
To make sauce, return remaining half of mushroom mixture to frying pan. Add broth and stir over low heat. Continuing to stir, add non-dairy creamer. If sauce has too much liquid, add a pinch of potato starch. Place chicken on a plate and cover with sauce.
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Created by a Tucson chef who specializes in French-inspired Southwestern cooking, this charoset is interesting, easy and delicious.
Janos Wilder's New American charoset
Makes about 2 cups
2 Granny Smith apples
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup fresh mango, peeled and diced
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Port or sweet wine
Peel, core and dice apples and sprinkle with lemon juice. Place all ingredients in a food processor. Pulse once or twice just to break up. Let sit for the flavors to meld.
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Ms. Nathan got this recipe from Chevy Chase resident Claudia Ostrow, an Egyptian Jew, who learned it in Italy from an Italian chef.
Chocolate torte
1 stick ( 1/2 cup) unsalted butter or margarine
8 ounces imported bittersweet chocolate
5 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup ground almonds
Melt butter with chocolate in the top of a double boiler. Cool. Beat egg yolks with sugar until they become pale yellow. Combine chocolate-butter mixture with sugar mixture. Add nuts. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold in chocolate mixture.
Place a pan of water on the bottom shelf of a 375 degree oven. (This makes the torte moister.) Line the bottom and sides of a greased 9-inch springform pan with aluminum foil and pour in the filling. Bake for 45-50 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit a few minutes in pan.
Unmold and carefully peel off the foil and place on a plate upside down. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar during the year and with granulated sugar ground in a food processor for Passover. (Confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch, is not kosher for Passover.)
TRADITIONS OF FREEDOM
A family Seder at cookbook author Joan Nathan's own home is one of the highlights of "Passover: Traditions of Freedom," an MPT-produced one-hour special to be aired on Channels 22 and 67 at 8 tonight. Ms. Nathan, who conceived of the show and served as senior program producer, demonstrates how cultural and ethnic traditions are expressed through the foods served around the world at the ceremonial Passover feast. Shot on location in the United States and Israel, the program shows how regional Passover customs commemorate the historic struggle for freedom of the ancient Israelites.
At Ms. Nathan's own Seder table, there are at least 25 guesteach year. The menu always includes her mother-in-law's gefilte fish and matzo-ball soup. Then there is brisket and turkey, asparagus salad, strawberries and desserts from recipes in her books that guests bring along.