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Jewish Holiday Cooking: A Food Lover's Treasury of Classics and Improvisations
An engaging reference guide to Jewish holiday cooking and celebrations features more than two hundred tempting recipes for the eight major Jewish holidays--Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, and Shavuot--including both classic dishes and innovative variations, along with personal reminiscences and Jewish historical notes.
574 pages, Hardcover
First published January 25, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 26, 2009
3.5 stars
Organized by holidays, Jayne Cohen's massive Jewish Holiday Cooking is a repository of both traditional food and what she calls "improvisations." The introduction talks about Cohen's memories of her Ashkenazi grandmother's cooking and her family's reluctance to recreate those meals on a regular basis. Holidays were the only times they looked to their roots, so Cohen was more comfortable with the other culinary aspects of her heritage. After her grandmother passed, the entire family began to rediscover and consequently reinterpret traditional Jewish food.
I thumbed through this cookbook a bit lazily. I'm not Jewish, just a fan of noodle kugel. And there's a classic recipe for that. But there's also a recipe for "Huevos Haminados", a slow-cooked egg dish roasted on onion skins. Then there's "Mozzerella in Matzoh Carrozza," a nod to both Italian and Jewish ingredients. "Mango and Sour Cherry Macaroon Crumble" adds an unexpected twist to the traditional macaroons of Passover.
I don't know if I would purchase this. I loved the stories for each recipe as well as the family ties for Cohen. It seems like a deeply personal cookbook. The instructions also seem fairly clear. But I missed the photos of the dishes; for an unfamilar cuisine, I need a visual element and there's nothing here. The glossary of terms was handy, and the index is very complete, full of good cross references. The scope of the book is quite daunting as well - Wiley truly published a tome.
I feel like if I'm ever in charge of a Jewish Holiday meal, I know where to turn. It was an interesting education on a world quite foreign to me. But would I use this all the time? No.
Organized by holidays, Jayne Cohen's massive Jewish Holiday Cooking is a repository of both traditional food and what she calls "improvisations." The introduction talks about Cohen's memories of her Ashkenazi grandmother's cooking and her family's reluctance to recreate those meals on a regular basis. Holidays were the only times they looked to their roots, so Cohen was more comfortable with the other culinary aspects of her heritage. After her grandmother passed, the entire family began to rediscover and consequently reinterpret traditional Jewish food.
I thumbed through this cookbook a bit lazily. I'm not Jewish, just a fan of noodle kugel. And there's a classic recipe for that. But there's also a recipe for "Huevos Haminados", a slow-cooked egg dish roasted on onion skins. Then there's "Mozzerella in Matzoh Carrozza," a nod to both Italian and Jewish ingredients. "Mango and Sour Cherry Macaroon Crumble" adds an unexpected twist to the traditional macaroons of Passover.
I don't know if I would purchase this. I loved the stories for each recipe as well as the family ties for Cohen. It seems like a deeply personal cookbook. The instructions also seem fairly clear. But I missed the photos of the dishes; for an unfamilar cuisine, I need a visual element and there's nothing here. The glossary of terms was handy, and the index is very complete, full of good cross references. The scope of the book is quite daunting as well - Wiley truly published a tome.
I feel like if I'm ever in charge of a Jewish Holiday meal, I know where to turn. It was an interesting education on a world quite foreign to me. But would I use this all the time? No.
September 28, 2008
it's that time of year
February 3, 2016
Comprehensive guide for the holidays with easy and delicious recipes.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews