Jewish cuisine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cholent or Chamin, Sephardic style with hard eggs

The core of Jewish cuisine is shaped by the Jewish dietary laws . Furthermore, there is no uniform Jewish cuisine, but a number of Jewish dishes that are influenced by the cuisine of the countries in which the Jews lived and live.

In general, one can differentiate between Ashkenazi and Sephardic - Oriental cuisine.

history

General

The Jewish dietary rules are based on the Torah and the Jewish doctrine. For example, devout Jews do not consume any dairy products with meat-containing foods. Furthermore, fish is only combined with dairy products or plant-based foods, but not with meat. Many animals are forbidden to eat because they are not kosher. To be kosher, mammals must have cleft hooves and be ruminants.

Like the ancient Hebrews, Jewish cuisine has its origins in the Middle East . Millennia ago it was significantly influenced by the cuisine of ancient Egypt and Byzantium . The author Salcia Landmann , for example, attributes the importance that garlic (“schumim”), leeks and onions have in Jewish cuisine to this Egyptian and Byzantine influence.

Food

As with other oriental peoples, the main component of the diet of the Israelites was vegetable food and, above all, grain “dagan”. This is still the case in Syria today.

Grain

The most important grain was wheat, which was usually ground to flour, with fine ("solet") and normal flour being differentiated. Bread with or without yeast was baked from it. Barley (“se'orim”) was used in the same way (cf. II Sam. Xvii. 28; Judges vii. 13; II Kings iv. 42; Ezek. Iv. 9, 12).

vegetables

Lentils ("'adaschim") were often used, but also various types of beans ("pol"), from which bread was occasionally baked. Cucumbers are also frequently mentioned; Even today the poor in big cities like Cairo or Damascus live mainly on bread and cucumbers or melons. Cucumbers are usually eaten raw as a salad with vinegar. Numbers xi. 5 mentions leeks, onions and garlic ("schumim"), which all belong to the same family of plants. They were usually eaten raw with bread. Today in Syria, onions are pickled like gherkins and served with meat.

fruit

There were early figs (“bikkurah”) and late figs (“te'enim”); the late variety was dried and pressed into cakes (“debelah”). Grapes were used fresh or dried as raisins. Olives were eaten fresh or pickled just as they are today. Pomegranate, the fruit of the mulberry tree, date palm, pistachios, almonds and walnuts are also mentioned. A drink was made from carob with water. It is unclear whether apples were known.

Spices

Cumin, mint, mustard, salt and garlic.

Influences

The Ashkenazi cuisine is influenced by the cuisine of Austria and the Eastern European countries, partly also the Balkans , the Sephardic-Oriental by the cuisines of the Near East , especially the Arab and Turkish , which is also widespread in the Balkans, as well as the Spanish and Portuguese .

Salcia Landmann points out the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic cuisine, pointing out that even in Israel many Ashkenazi Jews cannot warm up to the specialties of Sephardic and Oriental Jews and vice versa.

The Israeli national dish is falafel , an Arab dish that was adopted by the East European Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the local Palestinian Arab population.

Specialties

Ashkenazi specialties

Rugelach
Ma'amouls
Vinegar meat
Hamantaschen

Sephardic and Israeli specialties

Meals for the Sabbath and Jewish Holidays

Traditional Ashkenazi dishes

Sabbath

Rosh Hashanah

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur fasts for 25 hours.

  • Kreplach are eaten the evening before the festival.

Sukkot

Simchat Torah

Hanukkah

Purim

Passover

Shavuot

literature

  • Lea Fleischmann : Holy food. Judaism made understandable for non-Jews. 2nd edition, Scherz, Frankfurt am Main 2010 (first edition 2009), ISBN 978-3-502-15205-7 .
  • Michal Friedlander, Cilly Kugelmann on behalf of the Jewish Museum Berlin (ed.): Koscher & Co. On Food and Religion (An exhibition by the Jewish Museum Berlin October 9, 2009 to February 28, 2010, translated by Michael Ebmeyer and Karsten Kredel), Jewish Museum, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-89479-538-2 / Nicolai, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-89479-539-9 .
  • Bertha Gumprich : Complete practical cookbook for the Jewish kitchen . Self-checked and proven recipes for the preparation of all dishes, drinks and baked goods and everything canned for ordinary and fine cuisine. WVT - Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Trier 2002, ISBN 3-88476-560-4 (reprint of the Trier 1896 edition).
  • Clarissa Hyman: The Jewish Kitchen . Recipes and Stories from Around the World. Interlink, Northampton 2004, ISBN 978-1-56656-519-6 (English).
  • Salcia Landmann : bitter almonds and raisins. The most famous recipes in Jewish cuisine . Herbig, Munich / Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-7766-1306-8 (Already published in 1964 as "Kosher Samples. Recipes from Old Austria for Gourmets" by Müller-Rüschlikon, Rüschlikon ZH / Stuttgart / Vienna and in 2006 as "The Jewish kitchen . Recipes and Stories " from Kosmos, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-440-10859-8 ).
  • Gil Marks: Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Wiley, New York, NY 2010, ISBN 978-0-470-39130-3 (English).
  • Deborah Simon, Hermann Simon , Inggrid Kühnertt (illustrations): Jewish family recipes . A cookbook . 3rd edition, Hentrich and Hentrich, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-942271-16-5 (= Jewish miniatures volume 70).
  • Marlena Player: Jewish cuisine. Cooking kosher and traditional. (Original title: Kosher and Traditional Jewish Kooking , translated by Helmuth Santler). Tosa, Fränkisch Crumbach 2011, ISBN 978-3-86313-840-0 .
  • Eugeniusz Wirkowski: Kitchen of the Polish Jews. Interpress, Warsaw 1988, ISBN 83-223-2229-1 .
  • Wolf-Dieter Grün: Jewish cuisine and eating habits in Germany before the Holocaust - information, articles and some recipes. Finnentrop 2017. Contains a complete bibliography of Jewish cookbooks in German up to 1945. Full text (PDF)

Web links

Commons : Jewish Cuisine  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files