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originalpinkmountain

Do you have a Jewish cookbook you love?

l pinkmountain
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago

I only have one, a synagogue cookbook from the 70's out of Baltimore, that I fished out of the "discard" pile in the garage at my folks. The only one my mom ever used was Grossingers and I can't find that one, I think it just fell apart. Now that all the great Bubbe's in my life are gone, I feel like I should every once and a while make some of the old classics, just to keep their memory alive. I'm not crazy about the one cookbook I have. It is OK, but most of the recipes are just "meh." My aunt was the great, great cook and I know she got a lot of her recipes out of the NY Times. I'm debating whether to get that one (NYT Jewish cookbook) or just subscribe to the paper and then I can look up the recipes online. I can make all of my own Bubbe's specialties (except her stuffing cooked in the bird which I have never managed to replicate) but every once and a while I want to cook something different or really special and I don't have much variety in my cookbooks.

Also, what are your Jewish food classics? Mine are:

Chicken soup with either home made noodles or matzoh balls

Borscht

Chopped chicken livers, although really all kinds of chopped meat or vegetable spreadish salads, like hummus, egg salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, etc.

My bubbe made kishke but I really don't like it. Stuffed things though, like eggplant, peppers, cabbage rolls, etc.

Roast or fried chicken

Rye bread (not just Jewish I know, but growing up in a small town with no Jews, I was one of the few people I knew who ever ate it. That has changed . . . )

Bagels

Challah

Hamantaschen

Gummy fruit slices

Things with dried fruit like prunes, apricots, dates

Applesauce and apple cake

Banana bread

Oatmeal cookies (not particularly Jewish but one of my Bubbe's specialties)

Noodle and other puddings (kugels)

Potato pancakes

Cheesecake

Coleslaw a million ways

Corned beef, loved by both my Dutch and Polish grandmothers

Macaroons

Matzohbrei

Herrings salads, which I don't like, and smoked salmon, which I do.

Ditto gefilte fish. Yuck for half of my family, ah yum for the other. I'm in the yuck camp.

Edited to add rugelach, although no one I know makes it at home, so I've only ever had good rugelach when I lived near a good bakery that made it. So rarely. I've had a lot of mediocre rugelah though.

I know their are fancier Jewish dishes but my grandmother was just a basic cook. My aunt made some fabulous kugels, and her blintzes were to die for.

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