Jewish Cooking In America

Winner of James Beard Foundation Book Awards (Food of the Americas) 1995

Here is a rich tapestry of more than three centuries of Jewish cooking in America. In this book Joan Nathan gathers together more than 300 kosher recipes, old and new. They come from both Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews who came and settled all over America, bringing with them a wide variety of regional flavors, changing and adapting their traditional dishes according to what was available in the new country.

What makes Jewish cooking unique is the ancient dietary laws that govern the selection, preparation, and consumption of food by observant Jews. Food plays a major part in rituals, past and present, binding family and community. It is this theme that informs every page of Joan Nathan's warm and lively text.

Every dish has a story–from the cholents (the long-cooked rich meat stews) and kugels (vegetable and noodle puddings) prepared in advance for the Sabbath to the potato latkes (served with maple syrup in Vermont and goat cheese in California) and gefilte fish (made with whitefish in the Midwest, salmon in the Northwest, haddock in New England, and shad in Maryland). Joan Nathan tells us how lox and bagels and Lindy's cheesecake became household words and how American products like Crisco, cream cheese, junket, and Jell-O changed forever the way Jewish women cook.

The recipes and stories come from every part of the U.S.A. They are seasoned with Syrian, Moroccan, Greek, German, Polish, Georgian, and Alsatian flavors, and they represent traditional foods tailored for today's tastes as well as some of the nouvelle creations of Jewish chefs from New York to Tuscany.