Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook by Joan Nathan

Synopsis

Jewish holidays are defined by food. Yet Jewish cooking is always changing, encompassing the flavors of the world, embracing local culinary traditions of every place in which Jews have lived and adapting them to Jewish observance. This collection, the culmination of Joan Nathan’s decades of gathering Jewish recipes from around the world, is a tour through the Jewish holidays as told in food. For each holiday, Nathan presents menus from different cuisines—Moroccan, Russian, German, and contemporary American are just a few—that show how the traditions of Jewish food have taken on new forms around the world. There are dishes that you will remember from your mother’s table and dishes that go back to the Second Temple, family recipes that you thought were lost and other families’ recipes that you have yet to discover. Explaining their origins and the holidays that have shaped them, Nathan spices these delicious recipes with delightful stories about the people who have kept these traditions alive.

Try something exotic—Algerian Chicken Tagine with Quinces or Seven-Fruit Haroset from Surinam—or rediscover an American favorite like Pineapple Noodle Kugel or Charlestonian Broth with “Soup Bunch” and Matzah Balls. No matter what you select, this essential book, which combines and updates Nathan’s classic cookbooks The Jewish Holiday Baker and The Jewish Holiday Kitchen with a new generation of recipes, will bring the rich variety and heritage of Jewish cooking to your table on the holidays and throughout the year.

Library Journal

Not merely a revision of The Jewish Holiday Kitchen, first published 25 years ago, Nathan's big new book also includes recipes and material from The Jewish Holiday Baker and her numerous articles for the New York Times. The hundreds of recipes, representing both the Ashkenazic and the Sephardic traditions, come from Jewish communities all over the world: Moroccan Challah, Greek Leek Patties, Mexican Banana Cake, and Haroset from Surinam. There are regional and cultural variations of many recipes--for example, in addition to the one from Surinam, there are also Egyptian, Venetian, Persian, and Yemenite harosets. Recipes are organized by holiday, from Rosh Hashanah to Shavuoth, with separate chapters on the Sabbath and "The Life Cycle," a selection of traditional dishes for events such as bar mitzvahs and weddings. Detailed, thoroughly researched head notes provide historical and religious context, and numerous boxes cover a wide variety of topics. Highly recommended. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Biography

Joan Nathan's books include The Jewish Holiday Baker, The Children's Jewish Holiday Kitchen, and Jewish Cooking in America, which won the IACP Julia Child Award for Best Cookbook of the Year and the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook. She lives in Washington, D.C.