TREYF: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw

by Elissa Altman

From the Washington Post columnist and James Beard Award-winning author of Poor Man’s Feast comes a story of seeking truth, acceptance, and self in a world of contradiction...

Treyf: According to Leviticus, unkosher and prohibited, like lobster, shrimp, pork, fish without scales, the mixing of meat and dairy. Also, imperfect, intolerable, offensive, undesirable, unclean, improper, broken, forbidden, illicit.

A person can eat treyf; a person can be treyf.

In this kaleidoscopic, universal memoir of time and place, Elissa Altman explores the tradition, religion, family expectation, and the forbidden that were the fixed points in her 1970s Queens, New York, childhood. Every part of Altman’s youth was laced with contradiction and hope, betrayal and the yearning for acceptance: synagogue on Saturday and Chinese pork ribs on Sunday; Bat Mitzvahs followed by shrimp-in-lobster-sauce luncheons; her old-country grandparents, whose kindness and love were tied to unspoken rage, and her bell-bottomed neighbors, whose adoring affection hid dark secrets.

While the suburban promise of The Brady Bunch blared on television, Altman searched for peace and meaning in a world teeming with faith, violence, sex, and paradox. Spanning from 1940s wartime Brooklyn to 1960s and '70s Queens to present-day rural New England, Treyf captures the collision of youthful cravings and grown-up identities; it is a vivid tale of what it means to come to yourself both in spite of and in honor to your past.

Genres: Memoir, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction, Jewish, Religion, Judaism, Food

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 20, 2016

About the author

Elissa Altman is the author of Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking and the James Beard Award–winning blog of the same name and Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw. Her work has appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The New York Times, Tin House, The Rumpus, Dame Magazine, Krista Tippet's On Being, Tablet, The Forward, LitHub, Saveur, and The Washington Post, where her column, Feeding My Mother, ran for a year. Her work has been anthologized in Best Food Writing six times. A finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, Altman has taught the craft of memoir at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Loft Literary Center, 1440 Multiversity, and Ireland’s Literature and Larder Program, and has appeared live onstage at TEDx and The Public, on Heritage Radio, and on NPR’s The Splendid Table and All Things Considered. She lives in Connecticut with her family.
elissaaltman.com Facebook.com/elissa.altman Twitter: @ElissaAltman Instagram: @ elissa_altman

Reviews

[Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a snooze fest. After reading about half this book, I give up. There is nothing remarkable about Elissa Altman’s life. I thought this would be about a woman who leaves Orthodox Judaism. Instead, it’s about a nominally Jewish girl growing up in a somewhat dysfunctional family who feels the need to recount all the minutiae of her rather mundane life. She apparently realizes at some point that she is gay. Yawn. If this is her being a “outlaw”, big whoop.
There are so many better books out there.

[Chava · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally got this book because from the title and the subtitle, "My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw," I thought it would be perfect for an ongoing bibliography of books about "going off the derech." Well, Elissa was never on the derech, but I enjoyed reading the book.

We are about the same age, and I lived in Queens for a while, so I remember all the landmarks she does with fondness. I think many people growing up in that time were pulled in two directions - stay true to your Jewish roots and uphold the traditions, but be American and blend in -- those ancient rules are no longer relevant.

It's nice to read about real human beings. There is love and hate and anger and all the emotions one experiences with their family. It is also very much about food. As I was reading, I was thinking about the Chinese restaurant my family frequented when I was a child, my grandmother's incredible Hungarian cooking, and how food plays such a big role in Jewish celebrations.

Looking forward to reading her other books.

[Laurel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Treyf is a Yiddish word for food that’s not kosher, i.e. “flesh torn by beasts.” Other adjectives that come to mind are a bit more strong – unclean, forbidden, unfit. And while Elissa Altman’s memoir, Treyf, does spend a lot of time (A LOT OF TIME) referencing pork products, shellfish and the mixing of meat and dairy, the real message, one I think is lost in the oft-repeated discussions of forbidden meals, is the pull of family and what holds that family together through years of upheaval, strife, and often tough love, tradition. Ms. Altman, an outsider in her own family, is torn between its pull and her own growing sense of identity. I think her book would have been richer if she would have focused more on this side of her story. She didn’t give it the attention or the depth it deserved.

[Debbie Rothstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed this book, most especially because a key setting is forest hills, NY (where the author grew up), which is where I grew up and lived until I attended college. So many places the author talked about that I remember vividly and it brought back so many happy memories and warm feelings. Other than that I didn’t really feel much emotion until the last third of the book.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I lived in the same area in Queens and liked all of the references.

[KarnagesMistress · Rating 5 out of 5]

On paper, Elissa Altman and I have very little in common. We both lack "Y" chromosomes. There are a few other areas of minor overlap, but, that's about it on the major ones. And yet, somehow, Elissa Altman has managed to write a memoir that feels as if it is your own. At the heart of this book are the people who surround us, who love us or don't, and we all have those. Food-- food is a massive part of Elissa's story, and everyone has to eat. It turns out that Jewish grandmothers and Irish ones don't look so different through the lens of time. Also, outsiders are outsiders, whether growing up in Queens, New York, or Illinois farm country. I thank her for this book. It was beautiful, and I am so glad that she chose to share! This book will also satisfy the 2019 Watauga County Public Library Reading Challenge categories: A book that brings back a happy childhood memory; A book with garlic in it (besides all of the references to dishes that contain garlic, garlic is specifically mentioned on pages 251 "garlic powder,"251 "garlic," 236 "garlic sausage," 236 "garlic," 195 "smashed garlic cloves," 133 "garlic," 123 "garlic," 54 "garlic and pork sausage," 37 "garlic bread"); A book you would recommend to someone else; A book about culture; A book about American history; A nonfiction book published in the last five years. I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways. It is an uncorrected proof (galley).

[Jill Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Food writer Elissa Altman's memoir, "Treyf", is a look at her life through the food she ate and the meals she cooked. She was the only child of a mismatched couple who divorced when their daughter was in her teens; life with both parents was often emotionally at odds with what Elissa saw around her. Her grandparents on both sides were from immigrant Jewish backgrounds and the foods both grandmothers cooked were kosher, while her parents both ate "treyf" (or non-kosher foods like pork and shellfish) in their own home.

I read half of Altman's book not knowing who she was until I looked her up on Wiki and read that she was a food writer. All of a sudden, the emphasis on food - kosher OR treyf - made sense. She was trying to make sense of her relationships through the food consumed when she was with each friend or relative. That's not a bad way to look back on your life and I thought Altman did a great job with her memoir.

I received this memoir from Net Galley and my review has no quid pro quo with the privilege of reading it. I will probably write a longer review when I review it for Amazon after it's publication.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

I read Altman's "Poor Man's Feast," and thought it was compelling and well-written. It's a series of essays that mostly relate to cooking and food, but told through an autobiographical lens that includes meeting her partner and setting up house together, meals with Altman's family, and her experiences working at Dean & Deluca. "Treyf" has essays about Altman's early years, dysfunctional family, and (of course) food. She's a very good writer, and effortlessly drew me in, but this collection felt less focused.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fully expected to love this and I disappointed myself. I can't think of reasons to blame the author for my lack of love, but I can think of reasons in myself. First and foremost is, I'm not so interested in reading such a personal memoir right now. I'm in the mood for some big-bang travel writing; or some meaty nonfiction. Like Before the Dawn.

Maybe trying to stick to a book to-read list is a stupid thing. You put things on it when they appeal to you, but you soon build up a 70-book backlog and the next one up is always the book you wanted to read eight months ago. I can rearrange the list, I guess, but then I suspect I'll simply keep moving books to the end and building up a larger and larger list.

But this book survived at least three "culls" and I still didn't like it. A lot of it was about the family of the author, not the author herself, and sometimes it was so journalistic that it fell flat. Example:

The afternoon before I leave [for summer camp], my mother packs my lunch in a brown paper bag as directed by the camp's ten-point list of instructions. She wants to make me the usual water-packed tuna with mayonnaise on untoasted diet white that she sends me to school with almost every day; I want Underwood Deviled Ham.

"Where did you hear of such a thing?" Gaga asks, looking up from her ironing. [Gaga is her grandmother]

"On television," I say.

"You don't even know what deviled ham is," my mother says, sighing.

"Neither do you," Gaga answers her, folding my camp shorts. "Come to think of it," she murmurs, "neither do I."

But because no Jewish mother or grandmother has ever said no to a food request made by her child, Gaga shuts off the iron, grabs her purse, and marches down Austin Street to the Associated grocery store. She returns ten minutes later, with a kosher pumpernickel raisin loaf and a single paper-wrapped can of Underwood Deviled ham.

[Then her mother makes the sandwich with the entire can of ham and wraps it in tinfoil."
It sits in the fridge overnight where the meat congeals into salty, porky spackle. At lunchtime, Elissa daintily eats the ham while her friend eats peanut butter and jelly.]

I pat the corners of my mouth with my napkin, roll up my bag, and am instantly and violently ill.

Possibly Ms. Altman was taught to show a story, not tell it. And that's what she did, with clarity and detail. But I failed to connect--I was just watching and never feeling. I can imagine other people loving it; I did not.

[Channon Coats · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an Outlaw at all

A tender autobiography seeking to find where the author belongs when her tribe seems determined to cut her away from the roots that have clearly defined everyone else and judged her an outsider for not meeting any of the standards except birth. Inch by inch, day by day, her parents pull and push her towards a life of difference and her deep love of them, her grandparents and the life they all live make her small in orthodoxies loom larger and larger, carrying her farther away from the comfort rules can provide. It becomes horribly difficult for a child to choose the cold abstraction of a rule or what they believe will be the warm love of a parent for the abrogation of one, particularly if you are punished for not choosing the parent, who not only punishes you but insists you don't love him/her. I haven't been there, but my mother was and kept it secret all my life. Thus, this autobio really rings chords of honest pain and gratitude for me. Ms. Altman, neither you nor I are alone. You write beautifully, inclusively, kindly, clearly, carefully and well. You also write roughly, hardly, densely, condensedly, poetically, and confusingly. Keep doing it. More. Especially about food. I have approximately 15,000 cookbooks myself for the exact same reason you have yours. My grandmother and I have the need to feed. Any time you want to feed or be fed, let me know, I do shop at D & D out here in Napa.

[Lex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I considered giving this a four, but I didn’t because I found the first two of three parts were a little slow for me. The third part flowed much better in my opinion, though I do recognize that it needed the first two parts to set up the situation. As someone who has anxiety, some of the situations were difficult to read, but I could also relate to some of those feelings. Interesting insight as to someone who struggles to belong in various cultures, a sort of behind the scenes glimpse at “passing” as Gentile and why that’s problematic.

[Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope. Another not my kind of book. The title intrigued me and I was curious about forbidden foods, behaviors, etc in the jewish community. This covers it all. But the book is more a growing u in my family memoir. Sounds like most families. They are what they are. Meh. Still, I am sure Jews will find it entertaining and connecting. It is well written and has some moments, , but not enough to keep me interested.

I received an advance copy from the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

[Jessica Rickert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story or rather a food journal of a jewish girl's childhood. Elissa is growing up with a very confusing family and trying to see where she fits in and what she herself would like to be. It is a journey in discovering which food to eat, being gay or straight or Jewish or not. A little hard to follow at times but still interesting enough to hold my attention.


I won this book on Good reads giveaway.

[George Crowder · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the acknowledgments, the author thanks 186 individuals by name, as well as numerous organizations. Perhaps this suggests why I found the book somewhat disjointed and confusing, though I confess I put it down and picked it back up several times. There seemed to be a lot of characters, each described in overwhelming physical detail, and I struggled to identify a throughline to the memoir. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of merit, both to the prose and to the quirky story.

[Wanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quote from beginning of book: “Treyf: According to Leviticus, unkosher and prohibited, like lobster, shrimp, pork, fish without scales, the mixing of meat and dairy. But also, according to my grandmother, imperfect, intolerable, offensive, undesirable, unclean, improper, filthy, broken, forbidden illicit, rule-breaking. A person can eat treyf; a person can be treyf.”

Memoir of author's life as eating, and being, treyf.

[Kathleen Harold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book almost as much as I loved Poor Mans Feast. I’m not Jewish, I live on the West Coast but I am a lesbian who had a difficult relationship with a nervous self involved mother. And I share the authors love of feeding others. I want to see the movie or Netflix series based on this authors books.

[Jo M · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars bc it’s bad or 2 stars because it’s not my kind of book? Maybe both. I wanted to like this so bad but it fell really flat. It was descriptive almost to a fault and although it’s memoir — so memory, not necessarily plot based — there were many stories I could not figure out WHY I was being told about ..??

[Gail · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like her column, Feeding my Mother, in the WaPo but I think I should have read Poor Man’s Feast instead of this. I’m not sure why she wrote a second memoir. Don’t know if I’ll try PMF now, this was pretty bad.

[Mary Northrup · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir by a Jewish woman who finally comes to terms with her true self. Dysfunctional as her family is, she does find spots of happiness. For readers who enjoy memoirs, Jewish culture, and New York stories.

[Carol Wendkos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a family memoir that reads like a novel. Growing up in Forest Hills, NY as I did in the 60's and 70's, there is so much I recognized. The nostalgia was potent. If you're a daughter or a foodie, it's impossible not to recognize snippets of your childhood.

[Colin Freebury · Rating 2 out of 5]

Altman seems to believe that many, perhaps most descendants of Jewish immigrants to America had to live like gentiles to escape antisemitism in American society. And they loved it, treyf and all. Abandoning their faith and its customs caused bitter and often irreparable rifts with their immigrant parents and grandparents. In the end, after her grandparents and then her father die, Altman reflects that she is the “real, modern American, the one who transcended my family’s genetic code of violence and rage and disappointment, who broke every Talmudic law presented to us as though it was our job. I am no longer saddles with an impractical, demanding piety five thousand years old; I am the one who lives and eats – unfettered by my family history of death, longing, guilt shame, and the relentless desire to belong – like a Gentile living in a Gentile world. Am I not who they struggled to be? Am I not who they wanted me to become?" But one has the sense that deep down, she feels lost and longs for her family’s roots and traditions.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all of Altman’s books, but I think this is my favorite. Her childhood couldn’t be more different than mine, but I can relate to her search for acceptance and belonging in a family where both those things were elusive, and secrets were buried deeply.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Altman not only reveals how she learned to interweave the contradictory threads of her life into a complex whole. She also gives eloquent voice to the universal human desire to belong.

A poignant and life-affirming family memoir.

[Mindy Blatchford · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting memoir on audiobook, read by the author; as a reform Jew from NY, i really felt like i knew some of the characters and situations. it also tickled me to hear her speak about various NY eateries

[Teddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tasty bite of a book. I loved the people in the book. And learning about things.

[Adenak · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive and overly drawn out style both bored and annoyed me

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this rich in both detail and reflection, insight. Its world is highly particular, but it reaches out well to the universal sense of both belonging and not belonging. Nicely done.

[Juliahoney Kamenker · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting knew so many of her references which made it interesting

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I expected. I thought her family would be more Jewish. The only "outlaw" thing about Altman is her homosexuality.

[Shira · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like it but it was really whiney