Two summers ago, we spent a few weeks in New York, and visited the Museum of Natural History, which features a special exhibit on food. Among the fascinating elements of the exhibit was a display on special holiday foods, describing the different foods that people of different cultures use during their celebrations.
After watching the video and seeing the exhibit, I turned to my own children and asked them what food they most associate with the holidays. To my mind, I thought that they'd say something like apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah, or matzah on Pesach. Nope, and nope. Each one said the exact same thing: Fricassee. That's right. My mother's fricassee.
She served it as an appetizer, made of chicken wings, necks, pupiks (if you have to ask, don't) and meatballs. I've done away with the necks and pupiks, but the taste is the same. I make it twice a year: Sukkot and Pesach, and especially on the night of the Seder, when you're already full from eating eight tons of matzah before you even start eating, all we have is chicken soup with kneidlach, and fricassee. And then it's on to the afikomen.
I was pleasantly surprised that my children have grown so attached to a food I learned from my mother (which she learned from hers). I'm certain that every family has its fricassee. Unless you're from one of those families that goes to a hotel for Pesach. Oh well.
Before many Shabbatot, I grill a few chicken breasts which we then slice to make sandwiches on Shabbat (usually morning). It is very delicious. So delicious in fact, that my son decided that he would use a good portion of the leftovers to make himself a huge sandwich which he would bring with him to school. He carefully assembled said grilled chicken sandwich on Saturday night, adding pickles, ketchup, etc.
On Sunday afternoon, I received the following text: "Forgot my sandwich. :-("
I felt bad. Truly I did. I even contacted a teacher who lives in Yad Binyamin, in an attempt to send him the sandwich, to no avail.
So on Monday, I sent him the following text: "I had a great sandwich today. I actually tried to send it to you but couldn't find a way to get it to you. So thanks. It was yummy."
To this he responded: "I found plums in the fridge. They were so good. And juicy..."
We're in the United States for an extended vacation, and we took the family to the Natural History Museum in New York, where there's an interesting exhibit on different aspects of food. There's a great display of a Roman banquet, which immediately brought to mind both the Pesach seder as well as the Gemara in Brachot which describes such a meal in precise detail. (By the way, the exhibit says that they leaned to their left so that they could eat with their right hand. We were always taught that we lean left so that the food will go down properly, but I wonder whether doctors among my readers can chime in and let me know if that's an anatomically correct assertion...)
Towards the end of the display, there's a film about the role of food in culture, focusing on Thanksgiving, the Chinese New Year, and Hindu culture. It could, of course, have been about Jewish culture as well. After all, think about how the following foods conjure in our minds religious experience:
Hand matzah
Apples and honey
Hamentashen
Latkes
Challah
I asked two of my children to name the food that most makes them think of a certain time of the year, and they both, to my great surprise, gave the same answer: Fricasee.
Twice a year, on Pesach and Sukkot, I make a recipe for Fricasee that I learned from my mother that she learned from hers. It's got meatballs, chicken wings, necks, lots of onions, and a ton of paprika. I just like how it tastes, but never realized just how closely my kids associate it with the Chagim.
Ask your kids what food most makes them think of a time of the year. Their answer might surprise you.
I normally don't post on food in Israel, but I saw an article in Ha'aretz that recommended certain a number of different street foods that you can buy in Israel (including the old standards - falafel, shwarma, etc.), but I noticed one food that didn't make the list that I must recommend called "Shakshuka."
I remember shakshuka from my yeshiva days as a watery, vile mix of tomato sauce and scrambled eggs, and could never figure out why the Israelis liked it. Yet, what I didn't appreciate then is that all institutional food is vile, and it wasn't Shakshuka that I didn't like, but yeshiva shakshuka. (It's kind of like when American kids say that they don't like falafel because all they've had is the frozen kind that you buy in the store and warm in the microwave - a crime against food if you ask me.)
What is Shakshuka? Says the heilige Wikipedia:
Shakshouka (Arabic: شكشوكة; Hebrew: שקשוקה) (also shakshuka) is a dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions, often spiced with cumin. [1]. It is believed to have Algerian and Tunisian origins.
That's about right. Take a spicy, really flavorful tomato sauce, crack a couple of eggs into the sauce while it's boiling on the stove and serve at the table, piping hot. It's powerfully flavorful - and delicious. My current favorite version is the Italian Shakshuka at Cafe Cafe (p22) - basically take the above dish and stir in a generous helping of Mazorella Cheese. Slather it on a roll over a long breakfast, and you're set for the day.
Teaching seventh grade Gemara first thing in the morning at the Akiva Hebrew Day School back in Michigan, what was the greatest factor which would determine my success or failure in the classroom? Was it my ability as a teacher? Sure. But along with my ability to teach and control the classroom, it was also clear that the kids would need to be alert, attentive and ready to learn. And often they were not, even first thing in the morning. I would often find my pubescent, pre-teen charges vacillating between hyperactivity and listlessness, overdrive and lethargy. What caused these wild energy swings? Was it their moodiness and the challenging age-level? Partly. But I believe that it also had a lot to do with what they ate for breakfast. Parshat Beshalach relates the story of the mythical Mon (מן - I never know how to transliterate that word into English), the mystical every-food that rained down on the Children of Israel in the desert. The Midrash relates that among the mystical Mon's magical qualities was its ability to taste like whatever the eater wished. Pizza? Sure. Roast beef? Why not. Roast beef on pizza. Why not - it's all pareve. (Kind of makes you think that the Mon had a lot in common with soy.) Yet, Kli Yakkar adds that the Mon allowed the Jewish people to focus on spiritual growth during their time in the desert, because the Mon alleviated two critical problems that detract from one's ability to grow closer to God. The first problem with "normal" food is external: you have to work to produce it, whether you produce the food yourself or work to earn money to pay for that food. That time expended working for our "daily bread" detracts from the time we spend in spiritual pursuits. The Mon easily resolved this issue, as the Jews expended no time working to produce the food they needed to live. It arrived almost on their doorstep, neatly wrapped in a protective dew-like wrapping. But food itself carries Kli Yakkar calls an "internal" aspect that prevent growth.
מבית הוא מצד מאכלים גסים המפסידים זכות וברירות השכל, עד אשר כח שכלו עובר בעמק עכור ואינו זך לעסוק במושכלות...והמן היה אוכל רוחני כל אוכליו ניצולו מן שני המונעים אלו...הן מבפנים כי היה מאכל זך ונקי מכל פסולת
Internally, this due to the fact that heavy foods detract from the clarity and purity of the intellect, until a person's intellectual ability passes through a valley of fog, lacking the [required] purity to engage in intellectual matters...and the Mon was spiritual food, so that those who ate it were saved from these two detractions...including the internal [detraction] for it was a pure food, clean from all impurities.
Kli Yakkar notes that the Mon's miraculousness emanated not only from its origin and its simple presence each and every day. God also created the Mon as the ideal food for spiritual growth. It didn't give you a sugar high, only to have you fall crashing down to exhaustion in the middle of your first-period Gemara class. It wasn't full of fat and refined grains, leaving you feeling bloated and unable to learn. It was healthy, tasty, filling and lean, leaving you energized and ready for a long period of spiritual growth. True, we can't give ourselves or our children Mon for breakfast. But if you wonder why you (or they) are so tired in the middle of the morning, ask yourself this: what did they have for breakfast? If the answer is either (a) Nothing (b) Sugar cereal - or most any breakfast cereal for that matter or (c) snack food - very common among kids - stop wondering. And start eating - and feeding your children - a healthier, and more spiritually encouraging breakfast.
Over Pesach I spoke at Sha’arei Tefilah (a new shul in Yad Binyamin) on the topic of “Food and Eating in Judaism”, basing my talk on an essay from the Rav that appears in the book Festival of Freedom, published after his death. So, none of this is from me – it’s all based on the Rav’s first essay entitled, “An Exalted Evening: the Seder Night.” So what’s the problem with food? We all like food. Most people I know have no problem with food – and in fact like it very much. (I consider myself strongly in this category, especially with regard to grilled meats.) Generally, food tastes good. It serves as a source of nourishment. It brings us a sense of physical well-being and even pleasure. So what could be bad? It boils down to biology.
Generally, human beings keep their biology to themselves. We consider biological function private and personal, to be shielded from the view of others. Think about the different types of biological functions that our bodies perform: defecation, lactation, cohabitation. We perform each function in private, as we should. And then there’s eating. Functionally, there’s nothing that distinguishes eating from any other biological function. And yet, for some reason, we perform that particular act in the most public of settings. Why? Frequency -- we use the bathroom every day. Pleasure -- sexuality certainly fits that bill, and despite changing societal norms, that still belongs in private. So what’s different about eating? Why should the biological function of eating enjoy a place in public while other functions languish in private? We can also ask the question another way: in what ways can and should we humanize eating? Humanity considers itself substantially different than the animal world. We use our cognitive capacity to elevate ourselves both physically, but also ethically and morally. But the biological function of eating is substantively no different than that of the animal world. We eat – but so does the beast of the field, the fish of the sea, the termite in his wood. Each needs biological sustenance, so he consumes nourishment. We’re no different. We’re hungry, so we consume food. But we’re supposed to be different. We’re not supposed to simply fulfill biological needs; we must elevate them and even sanctify them. In recent years, a new “sport” has cropped up called “competitive eating.” This sport pits contestants from around the world in a competition to see who can consume the largest quantity of – whatever food it is – in a specific amount of time. While this practice probably began harmlessly enough, with the pie-eating contest at the county fair (remember the great scene though, from Stand by Me) – it has mushroomed into a full-fledged sport complete with sponsorships, prize-winnings, and television deals. Who can forget Kobiyashi’s memorable championship performance during this year’s July 4th Hot Dog eating contest, where he suffered a “reversal” (that’s industry-speak for “vomiting”) but was able to re-ingest to avoid disqualification, and soldiered on. (Full disclosure: I missed the broadcast. Sadly, I was probably eating hot dogs on July 4th – not watching others). In any case, any objective observer who can take a step back would realize just how animalistic, vulgar and profane “competitive eating” truly is. It’s really unfair to call it “animalistic”, because no animal would ever eat in this way. An animal might eat a huge amount – but only because he’s been programmed biologically to store his food for an extended period of time. No animal would intentionally eat a quantity of food that would make him sick. What would be the point of that? No – “competitive eating” is an endeavor that only human beings engage in. Hot-dog and matzah-ball eating contests only highlight the problem for us. They demonstrate the quandary food presents to us all: our biological functions have the ability to degrade below the level of the animal world. It carries that much danger – but also the same amount of positive potential. Just as food can denigrate us, in can elevate us – make us better people: more human, more spiritual and more exalted. The question is how. The Rav, articulating the problem in his eloquence, notes that the Torah requires that we introduce God into the process of eating.
If man wants to redeem his eating activity and sanctify it, he must invite God to partake of the meal, or to join him and his friends while they are engaged in something so carnal and "primitive." This strange experiment of introducing God into the circle of men enjoying their food is not a homiletical image, but a solid biblical idea. Man eats his bread before God: Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came and all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God (Ex. 18:12). Upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink (Ex.24:11) There you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand unto (Deut. 12:7). "Eating before God": how strange this phrase would have sounded to the Greeks of old! Thinking before—or rather with God was a truism in late Greek philosophy, particularly among the Stoa, who considered the finite human intellect an infinitesimal component of the infinite divine logos, and who regarded thinking as a reflex of the divine poetic gesture. Whenever man engages in cognition, he submerges in God, because only through Him is acquisition of knowledge possible. To come close to God or to unite with Him through such an unrefined carnal activity as eating would simply evoke ridicule. Yet our religious conscience felt differently: one eats with God, in His presences How? By sacrificial action, which converts the food of man into the bread of God: You shall sanctify him therefore; for he offers the bread of your God (Lev. 21:8). Command the children of Israel and say unto them: My offering and My bread for My sacrifices made by fire ...(Num. 28:2). Judaism developed a new institution, the se`udah. It is neither an ordinary meal nor a feast; it is more than that. It is the crucible in which the bread of man is transposed into the bread of God; it expresses the fellowship between God and man and the participation of God in all human pursuits and activities. The realization of the idea of se'udah can occur only when man eats differently than the animal, when he displays uniqueness even with regard to the physiological processes in which he must engage in order to satisfy the demands of his body.
Judaism answers the challenge of sanctifying our eating in a number of different significant ways, each addressing a different aspect of the process of eating. Appreciating the significant demands that Judaism makes during each step of the process can transform the way we look not only at the food that we eat, but the very way that we live our lives.
Two summers ago, we spent a few weeks in New York, and visited the Museum of Natural History, which features a special exhibit on food. Among the fascinating elements of the exhibit was a display on special holiday foods, describing the different foods that people of different cultures use during their celebrations.
