Yiddishe Mamas (24 page)

Kosher means “that which is fit.”
Kashrut
is the method—the hows—to live fittingly and righteously. Simply, the foods affected are those derived from animals. Land animals must chew their cud and have cloven hooves. So, cows are kosher, while pigs are not. Birds can’t be scavengers or birds of prey, making chickens OK, and vultures
treyf
(non-kosher). Sea animals must have scales and fins, ruling out all shellfish.

Eggs, milk, and vegetables are all kosher.

Kosher
preparation
of acceptable animals is crucial and strict. They must be killed with a stroke of a sharp, nickless knife across the throat, which is supposedly painless. This is performed by a Jewish butcher, or
shochet,
under the supervision and scrutiny of rabbis. The blood of the animal must be drained, and the carcass inspected for illness.

Another set of rules involve which foods may or may not be consumed together. There are three categories: milk, meat, and pareve. Pareve foods, which include vegetables, fruits, fish, and eggs, are neutral and may be eaten with anything. Meat and dairy must never be mixed. A truly kosher Jewish mother keeps separate dishes to ensure against any contamination by mixing them.

One of the most persistent myths pervading Jewish culture to this day is the notion that kosher dietary laws (Leviticus 11:44-45) were created for health reasons. Many of these laws did prevent disease, but they are observed because they are mandatory statutes
(ckukkim)
for the purpose of purifying our instincts, leading to holiness and self-control, both of which lead to discipline, critical in character development. As it is said, “You should observe the words of this covenant,
Lema’an Taskil”
in order that you should act intelligently in all that you do.

Yet there was true merit in the healthful aspects of keeping kosher for the Israelites.

Removing the blood from animals, for example, kept disease within the Jewish community lower than their non-Jewish counterparts. In 1348, the Jews were less affected by the Black Death because of superior hygienic standards—this was another condition of
kashrut.

You may be surprised to learn that giraffes, gazelles, and certain species of grasshoppers and yes … locusts all pass kosher muster. However, better to leave the locusts off the bar mitzvah buffet—unless they’re covered in bittersweet chocolate.

The Talmud makes reference to foods that excite and delight—and those that dampen and “limpen.” Yes, we’re talking aphrodisiacs, the edible kind. According to the great scholars … well, grab a pencil.

Uplifting: Eggs, fish, garlic, wine, milk, cheese, and fatty meat were judged to increase sexual potency.

Feh!: Salt and egg barley
only
to be consumed in great quantities during SATs.

The Talmud studiously recommends some veggies over others, detailing the rewards—and punishments. Cabbages and beets made the preferred list. Here are others:

Speaking of garlic, Eliezar Segal, professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, and author of
Why Didn’t I Learn This in Hebrew School,
discusses this mighty herb.

“Rabbinic literature is full of praises for this common herb. It satisfies hunger, it warms the body, it illuminates one’s face, it increases seed, and it destroys intestinal parasites,” writes Professor Segal.

While modern-day herbalists agree, and make even more claims for garlic, from curing skin diseases to cancer, Segal refers back to an ordinance ascribed to Ezra during the Second Commonwealth that
required “Jews to eat garlic on Friday nights. The reason for this, as understood by the Talmud, is because garlic serves as an effective aid to ardor and fertility, and enhances the marital lovemaking that is an essential component of Jewish Sabbath observance.” (Of course, getting near your loved one might have posed a few problems!)

How do we know Eve was Jewish? Who else would say, “Here, have apiece fruit” goes the old joke. In Eastern Europe, fruit was a luxury. When Jewish women saw the availability of this precious commodity in America—given her duty to provide hospitality— she reveled in her ability to say, “Have a piece fruit.” I heard my own grandmother say it often when I was a child.

“[On the boat to America a lady] offered me an orange,” wrote Yuri Suhl, in
One Foot in America.

“I refused … saying that I was not ill. ‘But you don’t have to be ill to eat an orange,’ she said, as she pushed the fruit into my hand. I was puzzled. The painful memory of my mother’s dying came back to my mind.

“The barber of my Polish hometown was also the town’s ‘doctor.’ When he had prescribed an orange for my mother,
everyone knew she was gravely ill. Oranges were not available in our small town, so that day my father hired a carriage and set out for the neighboring town, which was much bigger. He returned late that night and the whole family crowded around him to see the fruit with their own eyes. We watched him lift the orange carefully out of a straw basket of the kind which peasants used for carrying eggs in. I had seen an orange for the first time.”

In response to the burgeoning Jewish community in the early 1900s, a number of manufacturers, Jewish and non-Jewish, realized there was an untapped market and began providing for the Jewish mother
balebostes
(housewives).

Take ketchup, for example. This ubiquitous food was served by immigrants and first generation Jewish Americans with
everything
as a replacement for tomato sauce—which might be contaminated by cheese or meat. It “saved” all manner of food for the mother who wasn’t such a terrific cook.

“Without ketchup Jews would starve to death. You needed ketchup not just for the taste but for the lubrication. … If Vaseline tasted, you’d have that on your steak,” comedian Shelley Berman told author Tim Boxer.

And this obsession with ketchup continued. In my home, ketchup was a “gravy” served with fish—and naturally, spaghetti.

In 1923, the Heinz Company, with the Orthodox Union, developed the use of the “Circle U” symbol, making Heinz the first brand of processed foods to carry the “kosher” symbol.

One of the most important prepared products for the Jewish housewife was the invention of Crisco in 1910. Three years after the product was on the market, Procter and Gamble advertised this new totally vegetable shortening as a product for which the “Hebrew Race had been waiting 4,000 years.”

They advertised in the Jewish press claiming how inexpensive and kosher Crisco was.

The company’s ads in the Yiddish press showed Brooklyn and Bronx housewives making potato pancakes and strudel with Crisco. In 1933, the company published a bilingual booklet,
Crisco Recipes for the Jewish Housewife,
in Yiddish and English, which included about sixty dishes such as baked gefilte fish, brown potato soup, kipfel, and mandlach.

Keeping kosher in this multicultural land was difficult and tested. And many a Jewish mother, over time, moved toward assimilating new foods, adapting them, or abandoning
kashrut
altogether.

We all know Jewish mothers who will keep kosher at home, then pig out on—well, pig—with rationalizations that would stun even the greatest Talmudic scholars. I know one woman, for example, who won’t touch pork—unless it’s called a “sparerib.”

By following
kashrut,
a solid wall is established against assimilation, and mixed marriage, as well. Yet, social contact with Gentiles is often through dining. Breaking with this law, many feel, has been a critical factor in Jewish “disaffiliation.”

In fairness, not all Jewish mothers are terrific cooks. “My mother doesn’t really cook. One night she was having people over for dinner and needed to poach a salmon,” says Joanna Gleason. “She called me for the recipe, which she was writing down. I got a call from her later, and everyone around me heard me say, ‘Mom, the water
covers
the fish!’”

Even among some of those who could cook well, the fare didn’t necessarily include “Gentile-style” food.

My own mother always made brisket. I never tasted English-style roast beef till I was a young adult. It was a proud moment when she called me for the recipe.

Donald Siegel, author of
From Lokshen to Lo Mein: The Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food,
cites sociologists who claim the connection began in New York City during the early 1900s. Proximity was one reason, as Jewish immigrants in the Lower East Side of Manhattan were next to Chinatown. Also, Chinese and Eastern European Jewish foods have some common ingredients, such as chicken, fish, cabbage, celery, garlic, and onions.

As Chinese chefs rarely use milk products, the likelihood of mixing kosher and non-kosher foods was diminished, so Jews often felt that Chinese food was “safe
treyf.”

Chopped liver, gefilte fish, chopped herring, potato latkes, and pickled cucumber are the dishes of Russian, Polish, and Eastern European shtetl Jews. Whether kosher or non-kosher, these Jewish mothers took their style of cooking with them to their new lands. As Jewish mothers came to America from all over the world, we brought our recipes, as well as our dreams.

“Chicken any which way, gefilte fish, chopped liver—we created all that,” said actor Fyvush Finkel. “Don’t let the French tell you about pâté! They got the pâté from us! We made the pâté. They got their pâté but we had our pâté. And our pâté was
even better than their pâté! … My grandmother—she rest in peace—never knew … about recipes. They did it all by heart, they never measured. They did it all with their fingertips and it was delicious—delicious! I still can’t get the boiled beef like she used to make. There’s an art to that. We created boiled beef. … There was a lot of fat involved. So from that we used to get the gout. We created the gout. That’s our disease.”

Recipes! While many have been handed down from generation to generation, and can be found in the marvelous books by Joan Nathan, among others, some just “felt” their way to the promised food.

My grandmother was one of them. To this day, I’ve never tasted either chicken soup or gefilte fish the way she made it. But if my late mother or I asked for a recipe? Forget it. “A little this, a little that” (I’m cleaning it up). And, to be honest, while her food was always outstanding, each time she made a dish, it was a little different if “the this and that” changed.

And we’re solid in our adoration for these delicacies—even if it causes heartburn like you wouldn’t believe.

Neil Simon’s
Brighton Beach Memoirs
(1986), set in 1937, is a memoir of Eugene, a Jewish teenager, going through puberty, while living with his overburdened, overcrowded, and underfinanced family in Brooklyn. In one scene much is made of … liver. Yes, liver was often served in Jewish households. But according to Eugene, it was a Jewish medieval torture. And cooked cabbage, another “favorite,” could be smelled “farther than sound traveling for seven minutes.”