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Jewish Holiday Cooking: A Food Lover’s Treasury of Classics and Improvisations
by Jayne Cohen
ISBN-10: 047176387X
ISBN-13: 9780471763871
ISBN-13: 9780471763871
Region: USA
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: February, 2008
Recipe Index
Publishers Information
About Jewish Holiday Cooking: A Food Lover’s Treasury of Classics and Improvisations
Publisher Web Link: http://www.wiley.com/
In Jewish Holiday Cooking, Jayne Cohen shares a wide-ranging collection of traditional Jewish recipes, as well as inventive new creations and contemporary variations on the classic dishes. For home cooks, drawing from the rich traditions of Jewish history when cooking for the holidays can be a daunting task. Jewish Holiday Cooking comes to the rescue with recipes drawn from Jayne Cohen’s first book, The Gefilte Variations -- called an “outstanding debut” by Publisher’s Weekly -- as well as over 100 new recipes and information on cooking for the holidays. More than just a cookbook, this is the definitive guide to celebrating the Jewish holidays. Cohen provides practical advice and creative suggestions on everything from setting a Seder table with ritual objects to accommodating vegan relatives. The book is organized around the major Jewish holidays and includes nearly 300 recipes and variations, plus suggested menus tailored to each occasion, all conforming to kosher dietary laws. Chapters include all eight of the major Jewish holidays -- Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, and Shavuot -- and the book is enlivened throughout with captivating personal reminiscences and tales from Jewish lore as well as nostalgic black and white photography from Cohen’s own family history. (http://www.wiley.com/)
Author Information
About Jayne Cohen
Author Web Link: http://www.jewishholidaycooking.com/
Everyone buys other ethnic cookbooks, but with few exceptions, traditionally the only market for Jewish cookbooks has been Jews. Most Jewish food is thought to be dreary and unrefined: a marginalized ethnic cuisine.
After all, beauty and glamor have traditionally been disassociated with Jewishness. From Lauren Bacall to Ralph Lauren, from Bob Dylan to Janis Ian, Jews have felt a need to reinvent themselves with new names to appear more glamorous or more hip. By and large, art and aesthetics that were Jewish were not considered beautiful or desirable. And neither was Jewish food.
This was certainly true in my family - all great cooks. Outside of holiday meals, we never served Jewish food for special occasions - it wasn’t special enough.
What changed all this for me - and I think for many others - was the civil rights movement and the interest in multiculturalism that it spawned. Being involved with other minorities made me re-examine my own culture. Moved watching other minorities reconnecting with their roots made me want to re-establish contact with my own, to rediscover where I came from.
What I wanted to do in Jewish Holiday Cooking was to explore some of the delicious possibilities of Jewish cuisine, to open it up to Jews and non-Jews too. I employed the techniques and ingredients that I worked with in other cuisines. It is not a compendium of other Jews’ creative recipes, but rather my own, a very personal journey - what I call “the autobiography of one palate.” Here are all the culinary influences that nourished me and resonate within me, written in my culinary mother tongue: Jewish.
Cuisine connects us to our past - and Jewish cuisine is above all a bubbe cuisine, a grandmother cuisine. My grandparents and parents are all gone now, but I continue to create new Jewish food memories for my daughter.
(http://www.jewishholidaycooking.com/)
