Jewish Food
A talk and presentation by Michèle Levy
Given on 20 August 2003 at Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue.

Great Variety Michèle Levy is a State Registered Dietician and she commenced her talk by saying that the great love of her life, after her husband and music, is food. However, a love of food is universal in Judaism; food being important not merely for sustaining life, but as an integral part of the Jewish observance of festivals etc throughout the year. She acknowledged her indebtedness to Claudia Rodin and Evelyn Rose as sources she has drawn upon, but it was obvious that Michèle has personally accumulated a lot of information and has a great interest and enthusiasm for her subject. She explained that there is great variety in Jewish food, and to some extent this has arisen as the result of geographical factors and Ashkenazi and Sephardi divisions within Judaism.

The Jewish Dietary Laws of Kashrut
These deal with what is permissible (KOSHER = fit) and what is forbidden – TRAFEFAH. The dietary laws also deal with the preparation of meat to avoid the consumption of blood, and the separation of meat from milk products. Animals that both "chew the cud" (i.e. herbivores that eat grass and leaves) and have cloven hooves (they cannot hold prey, so cannot be carnivores) are considered clean and permitted. All others including pig, horse, rabbit, and birds of prey are considered unclean and are forbidden. All creatures that have died of disease and game that has been hunted are forbidden. Only fish that have fins and scales are permitted. Forbidden fish include shellfish, octopus, squid, sturgeon, swordfish, monkfish, ray, turbot, eel, shark and skate. Reptiles, snails, frogs and insects are forbidden.

Michèlle referred to the biblical text "Thou must not eat flesh with its life blood in it" in support of the Jewish method of slaughter (SHEHITAH) to drain as much blood as possible from the animal, and she then outlined techniques such as washing and salting meat to remove any residual blood. The biblical command "Thou shalt not seethe the kid in its mother’s milk" has been interpreted by the rabbis to mean the complete separation of meat and milk. Foods containing one must not be eaten at the same meal as food containing the other. Nor may any such foods be cooked together. They must be kept completely apart at all stages; from storage and cooking to eating and washing up.

Ashkenazi Style Cooking
Much of what we eat in Britain today and know as Jewish food, i.e. chopped liver, gefilte fish, chopped herring, potato latkes, pickled cucumber, is the cooking of Russian, Polish and Eastern European Jews; it is the food of the shetl, i.e. provincial villages in Eastern Europe, where Jews lived during the past three centuries. Whenever Jews had to move on they took their style of cooking with them - to England, America and Israel.

There are very many Ashkenazi Jewish dishes and Michèle described a number of typical dishes which originated from Germany, Poland, Russia, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. One particular dish based on chopped salt and fresh water fish made into balls and poached in fish stock or fried originated in London.

Herring is a fish which is very popular with Ashkenazi Jews and which can be pickled in vinegar. It can then be chopped up with apple, sugar, onion and bread to make chopped herring. Also popular is chopped liver - cooked chicken livers, minced finely with hard-boiled egg, onion, chicken fat or vegetable oil.

Sephardi Style Cooking
This is the cooking practised by Mediterranean and Oriental Jews. There are 4 broad styles:

1. Judeo-Spanish (Jews of Iberian ancestry who went to live in the Ottoman heartlands).
2. North African Jewish cuisine (includes Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian and Libyan).
3. Judeo-Arab cooking, which is at its best in Syria and Lebanon.
4. Jewish cooking of Iraq and Iran – also India. Jewish cooking in this part of the world is immensely varied and regional, i.e. different in every country, sometimes in every city.

Sephardi cooking is sensual, aromatic and colourful. It makes use of anything that gives flavour, i.e. herbs, seeds, roots, pods, petals, Taramind, coconut milk, flower waters.

Michèle went on to describe typical dishes associated principally with Spain, Morocco and Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Turkey and Greece. Specific mention was made of Baclava, a multilayered nut-filled pastry used in celebrations in Jewish communities throughout the Middle East.

The Sabbath and Festivals
Michèle described a standard Friday night meal in an Ashkenazi household, and went on to outline what they might have for Saturday lunch, and the Saturday evening meal eaten after the Sabbath ends.

The Sabbath meals eaten by Sephardi families are somewhat varied, with many towns/communities having their own "specialities", and Michèle cited various examples.

The various Jewish festivals are marked by traditional Ashkenazi and Sephardi food, and examples were given of typical dishes for:

• Rosh Hashanah (New Year)
• Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
• Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles)
• Chanukah (commemorates Judas Maccabeus’s victory over the Syrians in 165 BC and the miracle of a one-day oil supply keeping the temple light burning for eight days)
• Purim (commemorates the outwitting of the Persian man, Haman, by Esther a Jewess)
• Passover (celebrates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt)
• Shavuot (celebrates the giving of the Torah by God to the Jews on Mount Sinai).

Israeli Food
As Israel is a land made up of immigrants from more than 70 countries, there is a vast and diverse range of different foods available. The Zionist pioneers who came from Russia and Poland at the beginning of the 20th century started the first Kibbutzim. They came with a sense of mission and ideology; work the land, eat simply. So bread, olives, cheese and raw vegetables etc became the basis of the kibbutz meal. These days things have moved on, and Israeli hotels offer more sumptuous fare. Also there are now Chinese restaurants, American Hamburgers, Pizzas etc. However in Israeli homes people still tend to eat according to their traditional backgrounds, and the many different foods reflecting these different backgrounds are sold in supermarkets and street markets.

Having given us a most comprehensive, informative and very interesting talk on Jewish food, Michèle then invited us to come up to a table on which she had prepared and labelled samples of some of the food she had described, and which we were able to taste.

- Bernard Tiley