Question: What is Jewish Cuisine?
Answer: Kosher food is any food prepared in accordance with Jewish dietary laws.
Jewish cuisine is the product of Jewish dietary laws, Jewish Sabbath laws, Jewish holiday rituals, and the local food and cooking customs of the many lands in which Jews have lived over the centuries.
In other words, Jewish cuisine is a unique synthesis of foods from around the world that have been adapted to meet the constraints of Jewish religious law and/or developed to fulfill Jewish cultural needs.
External Influences:
For centuries Jews migrated and settled in many different lands, and Jewish cuisine absorbed various flavors from these lands. Blintzes came from Germany, and baklavah came from Syria.
Just as the Jewish people consist of the two major cultural groups of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Jewish cuisine can also be broken up into Ashkenazic cuisine (Central and Eastern European in origin) and Sephardic cuisine (Mediterranean and Middle Eastern in origin).
Ashkenazic cuisine tends to use oil, potatoes, less expensive cuts of meat and straightforward seasonings. In contrast, Sephardic cuisine, which is more healthful, tends to use rice, legumes, dried fruits, fish, pastry and exotic spices.
Internal Influences:
Jewish dietary laws have had a constraining effect on Jewish cuisine. Due to the strict separation between meat and dairy food, dishes such as tacos could not be found in the last generation of Jewish cookbooks. Today, soy products can replace the meat in the recipe, so now kosher tacos can be prepared and enjoyed.
Sabbath laws have also had a fundamental influence on Jewish cuisine. Sabbath laws that prohibit cooking or putting things up to cook on the Sabbath has caused slow-cooking stews (cholent) and other dishes (kugels) to become popular components of Jewish cuisine.
Each Jewish holiday has had its own influence on Jewish cuisine. Honey cake and tzimmes gained fame as a result of Rosh Hashanah wishes for a new year that is sweet and plentiful. Blintzes and cheesecake were elevated in status as a result of the custom to eat dairy dishes on Shavuot.
Tomorrow's Jewish Cuisine:
The Jewish world has changed dramatically in the past century. After the Holocaust, the scattered Jewish people consolidated primarily in Israel (6 million) and the United States (6 million). Whereas once almost all Jews kept kosher, today only 25-30 percent of Jews in America keep kosher to some extent.
It will be interesting to follow the continuing evolution of Jewish cuisine in the face of these dramatic changes. I expect kosher rules will become less influential. Already Jewish cookbooks with non-kosher recipes are becoming more plentiful. And I expect American and Israeli cuisine will become more influential. Ingredients may become less frugal, as Jews today live better than they ever have in their long history.
Jewish cuisine is the product of Jewish dietary laws, Jewish Sabbath laws, Jewish holiday rituals, and the local food and cooking customs of the many lands in which Jews have lived over the centuries.
In other words, Jewish cuisine is a unique synthesis of foods from around the world that have been adapted to meet the constraints of Jewish religious law and/or developed to fulfill Jewish cultural needs.
External Influences:
For centuries Jews migrated and settled in many different lands, and Jewish cuisine absorbed various flavors from these lands. Blintzes came from Germany, and baklavah came from Syria.
Just as the Jewish people consist of the two major cultural groups of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Jewish cuisine can also be broken up into Ashkenazic cuisine (Central and Eastern European in origin) and Sephardic cuisine (Mediterranean and Middle Eastern in origin).
Ashkenazic cuisine tends to use oil, potatoes, less expensive cuts of meat and straightforward seasonings. In contrast, Sephardic cuisine, which is more healthful, tends to use rice, legumes, dried fruits, fish, pastry and exotic spices.
Internal Influences:
Jewish dietary laws have had a constraining effect on Jewish cuisine. Due to the strict separation between meat and dairy food, dishes such as tacos could not be found in the last generation of Jewish cookbooks. Today, soy products can replace the meat in the recipe, so now kosher tacos can be prepared and enjoyed.
Sabbath laws have also had a fundamental influence on Jewish cuisine. Sabbath laws that prohibit cooking or putting things up to cook on the Sabbath has caused slow-cooking stews (cholent) and other dishes (kugels) to become popular components of Jewish cuisine.
Each Jewish holiday has had its own influence on Jewish cuisine. Honey cake and tzimmes gained fame as a result of Rosh Hashanah wishes for a new year that is sweet and plentiful. Blintzes and cheesecake were elevated in status as a result of the custom to eat dairy dishes on Shavuot.
Tomorrow's Jewish Cuisine:
The Jewish world has changed dramatically in the past century. After the Holocaust, the scattered Jewish people consolidated primarily in Israel (6 million) and the United States (6 million). Whereas once almost all Jews kept kosher, today only 25-30 percent of Jews in America keep kosher to some extent.
It will be interesting to follow the continuing evolution of Jewish cuisine in the face of these dramatic changes. I expect kosher rules will become less influential. Already Jewish cookbooks with non-kosher recipes are becoming more plentiful. And I expect American and Israeli cuisine will become more influential. Ingredients may become less frugal, as Jews today live better than they ever have in their long history.