It’s hard to talk about Jewish culture without talking about food. The bagels, the brisket, the babka. Oh, the babka.
Ask anyone who is spending this weekend filling their freezer with matzo balls for the upcoming Passover Seder, and they’ll tell you that food is intertwined with Jewish culture and history — to the point,where it can become a theology in and of itself, the stage on which all sorts of Jewish values are performed. It’s not surprising to learn that the code of Jewish law is called the Shulchan Aruch — the set table. And that the commentary on the book is the Mappah — the tablecloth. But that said, what exactly does it mean for a food to be Jewish?
Alana Newhouse, editor of Tablet Magazine, the online journal which brands itself as a new read on Jewish life, attempts to answer this question (or operate from the place of having answered it) with a newly published book, The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List. In a series of short essays, contributors wax on about dishes from Mitteleuropa to the Middle East, probing through lines of history and sentiment (and making a collective case as to why the latter may be more important than the former).
From the outset (well, actually from the subtitle), Newhouse acknowledges this is loaded territory.
‘Debatable’ List Of '100 Most Jewish’ Foods Leaves Plenty Of Room For Kibbitzing
Photo: Noah Fecks/The 100 Most Jewish Foods
