Description
Book SynopsisThis book is about what makes food Jewish, or better, who and how one makes food Jewish. Making food Jewish is to negotiate between the local, regional, and now global foods available to eat and the portable Jewish taste preferences Jews have inherited from their sacred texts and calendars. What makes Jewish food Jewish, and what makes Jewish eating practices continually viable and meaningful are not fixed dietary rules and norms, but rather culinary interpretations and adaptations of them to new times and places culinary midrash. Jewish cuisine is a fusion of interactions, a reflection of displacement, and intentional positioning and re-positioning vis a vis sacred texts, old and new lands, Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors, old and new family combinations, re-imaginings of our personal ethnic, gender, and other identities. Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus questions Jewish identity in particular, and identity generally as something fixed, stable, and singular, and unintentional. Jewish food cho
Trade ReviewAn affable and spirited tour d'horizon of the Jewish culinary landscape, Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus's book enhances our understanding of the complex and often fraught relationship between culture and cuisine. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from rabbinic commentaries to contemporary cookbooks and personal anecdote, it reminds earnest foodies and casual eaters alike why food matters. -- Jenna Weissman Joselit, author of Set in Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments
Table of ContentsPart One: Setting the Table Introduction: Gastronomic Judaism as Vernacular Religion Part Two: Jewish Preferences for Everyday Foods Chapter 1: Meat Chapter 2: Bread Chapter 3: Vegetables and Fruit Part Three: Jewish Preferences for Exceptional Holiday Foods Chapter 4: A Taste for the Bittersweet: Charoset and the Hillel Sandwich Chapter 5: Jews Like it Hot: Cholent /Hamin Part Four: What Makes These Foods Jewish? Chapter 6: When and Where? Holidays, Home, and the Diaspora Season Our Joy Chapter 7: Who Says? Kosher, Kosher Style, and Cookbooks Chapter 8: Treif and Transgressive Jewish Eating Chapter 9: Mitzvot of the Mouth: Eating and Reading, Eating and Talking About It Chapter 10: Jewish Flavor Principles and Culinary Midrash Chapter 11: Jewish Flavor Principles
