Cohen - Jewish Holiday Cooking: a Food Lovers Treasury of Classics and Improvisations

Copyright 2008 by Jayne Cohen. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

Cover photography by James Peterson

Cover food styling by Claudia Sidoti

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The following recipes have been adapted from recipes previously published by the author in Bon Appetit, April 2002: Smoked Whitefish Gefilte Fish with Lemon-Horseradish Sauce, Moroccan-Flavored Brisket with Dried Apricots and Prunes, Salad of Bitter Herbs and Oranges, and Potato-Leek Matzoh Balls; in Bon Appetit, December 2001: Mediterranean Chickpea Latkes, Herbed Spinach Latkes with Feta-Yogurt Sauce, and Walnut-Cherry-Cheese Latkes with Chunky Cherry Applesauce; in Food and Wine, April 2000: Tangy Haroset Bites, Artichoke Soup with Light Herbed Matzoh Balls, Slow-Braised Brisket with Rosemary, Shallots, and Red Wine; and in Gourmet, September 1993: Leek Croquettes from Rhodes, Egyptian Ground Fish Balls with Tomato and Cumin, Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup with Sweet Potato Knaidlach, Syrian Apricot-Stuffed Meat Rolls with Tart-Sweet Cherry Sauce, Egyptian Black-Eyed Peas with Cilantro, and Hungarian Plum Tart.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cohen, Jayne.

Jewish holiday cooking : a food lovers classics and improvisations / Jayne Cohen.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 978-0-471-76387-1 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-118-39304-8 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-39305-5 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-39306-2 (ebk)

1. Cookery, Jewish. 2. Fasts and feastsJudaism. 3. Holiday cookery. I. Title.

TX724.C546 2007

641.5676--dc22

2006027612

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Once again, to the memory of my parents,

Joan and Max Cohen, who taught me how

to celebrate at the banquet of life

and to

Howie and Alex, for celebrating joyously there with me

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am privileged to have extraordinary agents and generous friends, Elise and Arnold Goodman. They have been there for me from day one, fifteen years ago, when Elise first contacted me after reading a Rosh Hashanah article that I wrote for Gourmet , saying she was sure I was nursing an idea for a book. Simply stated, without them, this book would not be. I cherish their affection, unwavering support, and faith in me and aspire to always live up to their high standards.

From the first day we met, my editor, Pam Chirls, had a keen, clear-eyed vision that would shape the work into the beautiful cookbook it was meant to be. Many thanks also to the rest of the talented group at Wiley who helped make the book come to life: Natalie Chapman, publisher; and Pams hard-working team, Christine DiComo, assistant editor, and Christina Solazzo, senior editorial assistant. I am very grateful to production manager Leslie Anglin, who started the project, and to production editor Amy Zarkos, who completed it with such skillful attention to detail; to copyeditor Suzanne Fass and North Market Street Graphics for all their careful work; and to proofreader Elizabeth Marotta. Special thanks to the gifted Alison Lew of Vertigo Design for her splendid interior designs and layouts and for gracefully incorporating my treasured family photographs. Heartfelt gratitude to publicist Gypsy Lovett for always working so hard and so cheerfully to get the word out.

Deepest appreciation to cookbook author and food photographer extraordinaire, James Peterson, who, ably assisted by Alice Piacenza, passionately translated my food into superb photos for the cover. I owe a special debt of gratitude to dear friend, Claudia Sidoti, who prepared and styled mouthwatering photo recipes with that extra ingredientlove. And many, many thanks to Suzanne Sunwoo for creating a cover that is a thing of beauty.

Jewish Holiday Cooking had its genesis in my first book, The Gefilte Variations , and I owe a great deal to Maria Guarnaschelli and all the others who made that work possible and taught me so much. And Id particularly like to thank the readers of that book who shared my passion and inspired me to begin this project and see it through, even when I thought I could not swallow one more matzoh ball.

I turned to many people while workingand eatingmy way through this book. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there are no new recipes under the sun. The infinite world of Jewish cuisine and traditions from which I borrowed freely has been over five thousand years in the making, and I owe an enormous debt to those who have shared their heirloom recipes and brought their traditions alive as well as those who opened the doors and orchestrated meetings with them. In addition to the people I mention in the text, I would particularly like to thank Anna (Kuki) Ben-David, Romiel Daniel, Jessica DellEra, Honorable Sukru Elekdag, Farhad Eshaghpour, Arnold Kaye, Larry Kaye, Tammy Koppel, Georgie London, Moris Roso, Amiel Rossabi, Leyla Schick, my cousin Jackie, the Honorable Jacqueline Silbermann, and Julie Visnogradsky and family. In Italy, Lia Hassan, Tina Ottolenghi, Ester Silvana Israel, and Rafi DAngeli and in Paris, Arlette and Claude Lustyk generously shared glimpses of their Jewish worlds. Many thanks to Giorgio Scattolin, Segretario Generale della Biblioteca Internazionale La Vigna in Vicenza, Italy, for all his help poring through books on Italian-Jewish cooking. And I am immensely grateful to the hundreds of Jewish cookbook writers who have preceded me. I list just a small sample in the bibliography.