Miriam's Kitchen

by Elizabeth Ehrlich

Like many Jewish Americans, Elizabeth Ehrlich was ambivalent about her background. She identified with Jewish cultural attitudes, but not with the institutions; she had fond memories of her Jewish grandmothers, but she found their religious practices irrelevant to her life. It wasn't until she entered the kitchen--and world--of her mother-in-law, Miriam, a Holocaust survivor, that Ehrlich began to understand the importance of preserving the traditions of the past. As Ehrlich looks on, Miriam methodically and lovingly prepares countless kosher meals while relating the often painful stories of her life in Poland and her immigration to America. These stories trigger a kind of religious awakening in Ehrlich, who--as she moves tentatively toward reclaiming the heritage she rejected as a young woman--gains a new appreciation of life?s possibilities, choices, and limitations.

Genres: Memoir, Food, Nonfiction, Jewish, Book Club, History, Judaism

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Suanne Laqueur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update for 20th Re-read (give or take): I was home alone this cold weekend so I went back to a couple of heart-warming favorites. I love this book so much. If you haven't read it, you should.

I read this book once a year. The cover has fallen off, the pages are dog-eared and shabby. I'll never part with it. Rich with love, lore, memories, cooking tips and recipes. Outstanding. My favorite.

[Jan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost didn't read this memoir, but it kept pulling me in. I think it was the recipes. This is a memoir built around recipes. The author strives to kosher her kitchen because she longs to connect her children to their tradition, in effect, to their grandmothers, and this book is her journey. Amazing how much the brain can hold. This book is a testament to those old reports that we only use a tenth of our brains, and I'm positive she doubled and tripled her use in the course of her endeavors. Even those of us who have chosen other ways in our journey to Jewish identity can benefit from the history she recounts as well as from the recipes.

Although I originally had it from the library, I purchased my own copy for the sake of those recipes. And I've given it as a gift to two people so far.

[Allyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir written about Mrs. Ehrlich's mother-in-law, Miriam, this book is centered around the theme of the Jewish family. As outsiders, we often give little consideration to Jewish families, except around Christmas (when we try our best to ignore them) and Hanukkah (when we miss them from work or school). We roll our eyes at the "kosher" hotdog commercials and think "really?? Is it THAT important that they have their own hotdogs." If you read this book and continue with that line of thinking, then you haven't really read this book at all. Mrs. Ehrlich discusses all of the elements of a kosher kitchen, from the separation of meat and dairy at preparation to the separation of sponges for clean-up. It's a dedicated lifestyle, not one for the hurried or easily annoyed at inconvenience. She also delves into Miriam's past as a survivor of the Holocaust. Mrs. Ehrlich is a member of the first generation to be born on American soil. Her stories of Nazi Germany are haunting and beautiful, reminding us of the resilience of the human spirit. These are all stories that Miriam relayed to her as she finally assumed her familial post in the kitchen, learning the kosher cooking that she had successfully avoided her entire life. Mrs. Ehrlich includes several kosher recipes, all of them either meat or dairy, but never both. I'm sure they would yield excellent results, but what this book offers is more substantial than food for the stomach alone.

[Kerri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miriam’s Kitchen is a book ahead of its time. Published in 1997, it tells the story of one woman’s attempt to maintain a kosher kitchen as a way of honoring her family and their traditions. Today, she would blog about the daily episodes of a year of keeping kosher. Instead, we get a tender, honest book filled with many joys and disappointments.

The author, Elizabeth Ehrlich, was raised Jewish but not in an especially devout household. As she grew older, she drifted from her faith. Not until she had children of her own did she realize that if she didn’t preserve the culinary traditions of generations past, they would be lost forever. Her education takes place mostly in the kitchen of her mother-in-law, Miriam.

I enjoyed the sincerity of the narrator. She admits her own modern-day misgivings about a faith that if followed properly keeps women trapped in a kitchen that must be spotless and impeccably organized at all times. On the other hand, she recognizes what generations of women in her family have been through, and she does not want to let their way of life disappear forever. The book is ultimately a spiritual and culinary memoir that shows how food and faith are inextricably linked. It will remind people of all backgrounds that the dinner table is a place where real love is given and received.

In a few places Erlich admits that she is not perfect, that no kosher kitchen could be. “Finally you have to live with your accommodation, the limits of being human. As with a calculus problem, the solution may draw close to an imaginary line, but never quite get there. At least, I’m sure I never will.” However, her quest is not about perfection. It’s about awareness and family. It’s about honoring those who have come before you and respecting something larger than yourself.

[Chana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book to read leading to the holiday of Shavous, the holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. On this holiday we read the book of Ruth, a woman who was not born Jewish but married a Jewish man. After her husband's death she chooses to stay with Naomi, her mother in law, and follow in her ways.
In this book a Jewish but secular woman marries a Jewish man and they have children together. Slowly but surely, the author Elizabeth, is influenced by her mother in law Miriam to become more observant. Elizabeth finds that she wants to pass on the heritage to her children. Miriam teaches Elizabeth to cook many of the recipes from her Polish Jewish past thereby ensuring the link of Jewish women past to Jewish women in the future. The cooking, the stories, the history, the love - it is all linked and expressed beautifully in this book. I found myself often thinking of my own mother-in-law and the enormous influence she has been in my life. She is really the reason I am observant now, and many of our conversations over the years took place in her kitchen.

[Chrisanne]

This was a beautiful tribute from the author. I loved the recipe, traditions, and stories. Ehrlich's journey of self-discovery is ultimately and wisely, I think, connected to discovering her family's past. I loved almost every minute of it.

At the end it got a bit distracted, I thought. It's complicated for her and that complication is definitely passed to us as the reader. But some of the stories seemed detached from the larger form of the first 2/3rds of the book. But I'm not the author and she may have wanted it that way. And it still remains one of my 2023 favorites.

Ehrlich is a talented writer, though. The mikveh, the buffet-line realization, etc., all made me feel (even though I can't really relate).

Memoir rules apply---I think I'm going to edit that rule, though so that if I read it posthumously, I will rate it.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually sell off my schoolbooks at the end of the year, but I'm definitely making an exception for this one

[Carol Bakker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Miriam's Kitchen has been on my shelf since 2010, it turned out to be a fabulous book for the moment.

This memoir is really Elizabeth's Ehrlich's love story to her mother-in-law, Miriam. Miriam is a Holocaust survivor who lost family members by the score during the war. The respect and honor is palpable and winsome. (I lost my mother-in-law to cancer in May; I spent the last five years attempting to fine-tune and replicate the family recipes, particularly the sauerkraut and potato dumplings. Oh, how I related to parts of this book!)

An intriguing part was Elizabeth's story was her decision to begin keeping kosher. More based on showing honor to the grandmothers than adherence to the law, she wrestles with the details, the rhythms, the symbolism.

A very enjoyable read.

[Carrie-Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gentle and beautiful memoir about the author's experience as a Jewish American woman living in the States and how she gradually incorporates her religious heritage into daily life, especially in regards to kosher laws. I loved how she included several family recipes throughout the book.



"Far away in time, she, a little girl then, loved a pear dessert, and it is unrecoverable."

"The memory of that always makes Miriam smile, just for a minute, until her heart snags on the rusty hook of her daughter's death twenty years ago."

"They chose what to keep and what to leave behind, what to forget and what to keep safe in the button tin of memory."

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this years ago and was reminded of it recently. I loved this memoir. I felt as if I was in the kitchen with the author’s mother in law, listening to her tell stories and share memories as she prepared traditional kosher dishes for her family. A heartwarming read.

[Sylvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was an interesting book in that it really took a good hard look at religion in our lives. How in one life time you can move in and out of it. I think that quite often in our lives we may or may not be as active in our religions as we really would like to be. I loved watching her move toward being orthadox / kosher in her adult life, knowing that this is the background she really wanted her children to embrace and carry with them thoughout their lives. I also liked the connection she made with her ancestors and past through food. In the begining of the book she describes this as Miriam is making egg salad. She says "She does not trawl the refrigerator for a stalk of celery, a taste of parsley, something new that might work just this once. The egg salad, always delicious, always comes out exactly the same. Tha taste is not of invention, but of a moment lost, a moment recovered, a moment in time."

In the end, over all I liked the book. I did feel there were some tedious chapters that I didn't think I was ever going to get through. It was a book that helped me understand an other religion as well as myself.

[Lorri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miriam’s Kitchen, by Elizabeth Ehrlich, is a unique memoir in its format. Alternating between recipes, the past and the present, Ehrlich presents a strong message for the Jewish kitchen, memories and familial connections.

The recipes in the book are quite detailed, from not only the cooking aspect, but the extensive preparation beforehand, that Miriam infuses into each one. Her kosher kitchen is more than that. It illuminates her life’s story, and without her ability and desire to continue her traditions, Miriam would not be the mentor she has become to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth has learned much from Miriam, and not only about cooking, but about her husband’s ancestry. The format alternates between Miriam’s kitchen and life and Elizabeth’s.

Elizabeth Ehrlich has brought us a unique look at Jewish life, Jewish customs and traditions, and Jewish culture and assimilation into American life within the pages of Miriam’s Kitchen. It is a book I recommend, for its look into Jewish culture and history, Jewish life and rituals, not to mention the amazing recipes included in the book.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have finally finished this book. It is filled with Jewish recipes and culture and stories and family and tradition. It is not a fast read, or it could be if I had made it a priority, instead of just picked it up to read on Sunday's.
Having only found out this year that my grandmother and all her family were Jewish, this book interested me, as I want to know about the traditions. It was interesting, the chapter on shiva--the mourning period. It forces the survivors to mourn together, even if they just want to cry alone. And all the food shared, and then, you must live again. It was interesting to me. But, what I loved the most was the Sabbath, the outward preparation to usher in the Sabbath day and what you can't do and what you should do. I can relate, as I feel it is a special day--a day to worship and a day that is different from the other six days. This was a good book, but there weren't many of the recipes that sounded good to me, but perhaps I will try to make some and imagine my grandma making or eating these foods as a girl.

[Miriam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd read this book a few times in the past, and probably would have given this four stars back then, but for some reason this time it got on my nerves a bit. Four stars for all the parts that are about Miriam (the author's mother-in-law), her cooking, and her history. Two stars for all the parts about the author herself and her childhood--the prose is a bit flowery, and the tone is rather self-indulgent. It does, however, provide an interesting portrait of the issues of assimilation in America; it is interesting to see how each generation balances religion and secular life in different ways.

[Red · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know all of those books with the kind of reality-tv premise of "I'm going to try a weird thing for a year and tell you how it changes my life"? They are all hollow aspirants falling to dust at the feet of this book. This is not a gimmick, this is a thoughtful woman making a big, slow, organic, meaningful change in her life, with all of the ambivalence and profundity that accompanies a big change.

[Lauren Crumbliss · Rating 5 out of 5]

This stands firmly in the list of top three books of my life. I am not Jewish. I don’t have a lot in common with the author. I just simply adored this book and how it slowed me down. A beautiful tribute to a dear mother in law. An insightful look at life and faith. Simply beautiful.

[LISA · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to grow up in this house and be in the kitchen and learn to cook like this and enjoy the warmth of this family .... i loved this book !

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly highly recommend- what a lovely consideration of past, of family, of daily life and how our relationships with others and with practice change and evolve.

[Nate Merrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The movie "American Pickle" is based on a story by Simon Rich first published in the New York titled "Sell Out". I haven't seen AP, but I read SO long before we knew AP was a thing, and I thought the story was really funny. The story is trying to be funny by juxtaposing 21st c brooklyn hipsters with 20th c jewish immigrants, but it's actually funny because it's such a ridiculous caricature of of how jews view their ancestors.

I expected this to be something similar, a wistful and romantic look at her grandparent's and grandparent-in-laws's life. And it was, which was sometimes nice and entertaining and interesting, and sometimes boring (does any care about the medicines her pharmacist grandfather mixed?)

It was also a lot more than that, which was sometimes nice and sometimes frustrating...

"I have a lot of affection for [Miriam's Kitchen] and it drives me insane" - Samira Mehta, on Judaism Unbound

I get that this is a memoir, but a little bit more reflection on how her and her family got to where they are would have been nice. Mentions of the jewih community's move to the suburbs of Detroit only serve as a contrast to her family's decision to remain in Detroit, and a look at the ethnic difference in the city might have been interesting to look at as a cause of her return to observance. But the idea of her building a floor for her children, and not dictating hwo they observe, was a good analogy and very nice, especially considering how much she was given by her parents and her husband's parents. Should read Lila Corwin Berman's Metropolitan Jews.

Her parents staying the city but losing their leftist judaism and observance was interesting too, because those two paths toward assimilation are usually associated with the move to the suburbs, but they can happen just as well in the city. Her mention of her father's 'law and order' views makes sense, as his ethnic-ness is much more marked in a majority Black neighborhood, while it might seem regressive to Jews living in the suburbs. I wish she would have talked about that more, but I guess this is a memoir, and she only experienced live in Detroit when she was young. Not a history book - but the story of Miriam's survival with the Cake chapter was very nice.

[Deena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The length of time it took me to read this book is exactly why I almost never bother with any sort of read along. My life just doesn't work that way.

There were ways in which this book resonated deeply with me, and ways in which it was entirely foreign. There were pages and paragraphs when the writing was lyrical and and deeply true - and other pages and paragraphs when I thought "get out of your head," and it was all too meta.

This is - thank goodness - not a foodie book, although food tradition is a significant element. It is not a cookbook or a Holocaust memoir. It isn't even really about Miriam, although she is important in it.

As I was reading it, I thought my review would be longer, perhaps details of what resonated and what didn't. I started it at a time when we thought my mother might be critically ill; thanks be, she is not, although what she does have will never really go away. My own m-i-l died 21 years ago, and I did not know my immigrant generation the way Ms. Ehrlich knew hers - although I wished from early childhood that I had. Often, books that purport to be about other things but are actually about people finding (or trying to find) themselves irritate the [expletive deleted] out of me - but this one didn't (except when it got too meta).

This was worth the time it took to read; I am glad I read it.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

What remains of this book is a description of Miriam removing every last bit of egg, and the impatience of the author. As a professional chef, where time is part of the cost, I often think of what we have lost with our constant rush. Yes, this book is mainly concerned with preserving cultural links with our (Jewish) heritage and how the author regained an appreciation of her own roots through her mother-in-law’s own history as a Holocaust survivor. For me, though, we lose those connections when we rush through our own lives at the speed of light. Without reflection, we cannot see the value of what came before.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt like a collection of short stories. Many of the stories were interesting, but there was no structure to the book. You can basically read the chapters in any order. And it was hard to keep track of all the characters.

I ended up skimming parts of the book and reading chapters that interested me. I wasn’t interested in the endless stories about cooking and recipes. I liked the chapters about relationships, including her relationships with her parents and in-laws. And I liked the stories about how she didn’t fit in when living in communities where there weren’t many other Jews. It can be super hard when you are the clear minority in your neighborhood or town.

[Susan Weintrob · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Miriam cooked and baked, she told the stories of her youth, of the Holocaust and, like the tea that she steeped, her daughter-in-law Elizabeth’s being became infused with tradition. Suddenly it became difficult for Elizabeth to serve meat and milk together, part of keeping kosher. The pot she had made meat balls in was no longer suitable for pasta with Parmesan cheese. On Friday night, a family dinner with Jewish tradition and food were inextricably intertwined. It is not surprising that the sense of smell is next to the place of memory in our brain. A wonderul memoir that brought memories of my own journey made more meaningful witht he recipes shared.

[Marissa Polvere · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was an interesting book to read. Considering that I'm not Jewish and have some friends who are, it was a good way for me to have a better understanding of Jewish people when it comes to their beliefs and having a kosher lifestyle. I really liked how the author included the recipes in her book and had a story with every food that she mentioned. However, there were some chapters that I thought were a bit tedious. I also wish the author talked more about Miriam's past, like how she survived the holocaust and what she did with food during that time.

[Kathleen Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best memoirs I've ever read. It's one I read several years ago, and I still think of it often. It's full of warmth, history, joy, and pain.

The author is a secular Jew who forms a close friendship with her Orthodox mother-in-law when she decides to start keeping a kosher kitchen. They bond over old family recipes. Miriam is a quiet, loving heroine. Her story will touch you deeply.

[Tracymarksseglin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really beautiful pieces of writing. Adored the reflections on family history and the mouthwatering telling of how food transports tradition forward. I appreciated the author’s struggle to craft a Judaism that made sense to her in a late 20th century life—whether to keep a kosher kitchen became a metaphor for that struggle—but these segments felt somewhat labored and redundant to me. Overall a heartwarming tribute to a family’s Jewish faith, food, culture and history.

[Meilech · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely an interesting read but I found myself trying to push myself to read certain parts of it.

The narrative is choppy and keeps jumping from her own childhood to the time she spends with Miriam, her mother in law.

The parts about Miriam was a pleasure to read and very intriguing. The other parts is a very mixed bag and I didn't care much for most of it.

Ultimately, I would still recommend this if you enjoy this genre.

[Eli Pollack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if this book would resonate with most people but, having lived a life very similar to hers, it was very moving. (How many other people grew up singing The Peat Bog Soldiers?) I wish I'd written this book but, not knowing how to write, I settled for reading it, and loving every minute.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Autobiography, history, personal philosophy, cooking, all interwoven as they are in life--and recipes to boot. Elizabeth is Jewish, but not especially observant. She begins to commit to a Kosher kitchen and other observances by way of, as she says, building a floor under her children. Miriam, her mother-in-law, plays a major role, as the title suggests.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly wonderful book (non-fiction) telling one modern woman's journey to reconnect with her Jewish immigrant heritage. She learns heart-warming stories and delicious recipes from Miriam, her mother-in-law, as she gradually decides to create a kosher kitchen to "build a floor" under her children. Beautiful story about the importance of family and food. I highly recommend this book!