Why does shabbat food have to be traditional ashkenazi food?

b.chadash

Thu, May 09 2024, 7:35 pm

amother OP wrote:

the simanim and honey cake on RH, dairy on shavuot... in brief, other holiday foods are so ubiquitous? I'm not aware of anything else...

Many people have already mentioned some.
To add, the dairy on shavuos is even more specific.
Blintzes resemble a sefer Torah.
There are a few ideas behind the cheesecake (I dont recall offhand, but you can google.) It's not just that it's a yummy food that happens to be dairy.

Stuffed cabbage rolls are eaten on simchas Torah also because they resemble a sefer Torah.
Even the fact that Challos have 6 strands that are braided has a source.

As a general rule, most of these things that are customarily done in Jewish communities have a deeper meaning behind them, although most people don't even know what they are.

Joey Newcomb put out a song recently called Ka'eleh. This is an excerpt from the song description:
"Many times in our lives, we just do things, but when Yidden do things, there’s always something more to it. The things we do are not just stam trends or other mishugassen. Our minhagim, even the ones that seem funny, are actually much deeper than we think."

Last edited by b.chadash on Thu, May 09 2024, 7:40 pm; edited 2 times in total

amother

Leaf

Thu, May 09 2024, 7:35 pm

I haven't read the whole thread but I just wanted to say that I really don't know why Ashkenazi food gets such a bad rap.

It may not be as colorful as other cuisines but when well prepared, its very delicious and satisfying.

I vary my Shabbat menus considerably, but when I do prepare a classic Ashkenazi Shabbat we love it.

All that being said, make what you and your family love.

amother

Seafoam

Thu, May 09 2024, 7:37 pm

amother Leaf wrote:

It’s “known” to be a bit bland and heavy on the fat and carbs. But many of us love it and that’s ok.

DVOM

Thu, May 09 2024, 8:02 pm

amother OP wrote:

I like to do a shabbat menu of one cuisine or style, like japanese food or persian food or cuban food or whatever. With guests we'll keep it more traditional -- things everyone likes, like Italian or more simile Asian food that people are more familiar with (sushi, edamame, teriyaki chicken) or crowd-pleasing latin food (forms of chicken and rice are always popular).

Yum! I want an invitation!

amother

Lightcoral

Thu, May 09 2024, 8:14 pm

amother Seafoam wrote:

It’s “known” to be a bit bland and heavy on the fat and carbs. But many of us love it and that’s ok.

It’s actually very tasty, spices are an huge deal as well as cooking things for a long time to have a strong taste. Unless bland means not swimming in tomato sauce. Which I can’t stand and can’t understand the sefardi appeal. But hey to each their own.

amother

DarkViolet

Thu, May 09 2024, 8:17 pm

amother Lightcoral wrote:

The only sephardi food I'm familiar with being in a tomato based sauce is Moroccan fish... Sounds like you haven't been exposed to much.

amother

Arcticblue

Thu, May 09 2024, 8:40 pm

amother OP wrote:

I'm a BT who grew up very OOT and didn't grow up with any connection to the traditional ashkenazi food that most of you probably know very well. I knew matzah ball soup and pastrami & rye from a treyf "kosher deli" but had no clue what's a kichel or a kugel or the difference between them.

I find the traditional ashkenazi shabbat food to be bland and boring, and I'd never go out of my way to cook it. I make whatever I want for shabbat and when we have guests, I make whatever I think is popular and that I think will have mass appeal. but you'll never find a kugel or gefilte fish on my table.

I've had discussions with others about this and they think it's important for shabbat food to have traditional ashkenazi food to maintain a link to our heritage. I don't see it that way. I see it that we were stuck in europe as very poor people with limited access to spices and good ingredients and developed a cuisine of mediocre peasant food, and I can embrace my judaism and pass it on to our kids without having to cook and serve that food. what do you think?

Perhaps what they actually mean is that they have fond memories of these foods at their parents' table, their grandparents' table, etc. and it fosters an emotional connection.

I did grow up in a traditional ashkenazi home and while I am a foodie who creates all kinds of interesting and delicious foods for shabbos and YT rather than the typical gefilte fish, kugel, cholent, and so forth, there are definitely times I am feeling nostalgic and go old school. And it does bring on a feeling of connection to my childhood and to generations before me.

I don't need or want these foods week in and week out - or even most of the time. But for others they are very important and I get it.

zaq

Thu, May 09 2024, 9:06 pm

OP, ITA with you. It's very nice if you happen to like traditional Ashkenazi food, but I have a sneaky suspicion that this is not what "Shabbat food" meant to Moses, King David, the prophet Jeremiah, the Maccabees, Rabbi Akiva, Saadiah Gaon, Dona Gracia Nasi or the Baba Sali.

I have no argument with people who depart from their mother's cooking and look for something different for Shabbat. All communities develop their cuisine based on what is available to them at the time. What matters is that Shabbat food be different from, more festive and better than what one eats every day. Because my forebears were poor and beans were a weekday staple, they considered beans in any form entirely inappropriate for Shabbat. I never even heard of cholent till I was in middle school, and we're Ashkenazi through and through.

Some foods are traditionally for Shabbat because they make it easier to avoid certain melachot. Gefilte fish, for example, does away with the need to separate bones from the flesh. But that doesn't mean that you need to eat it, nor does it mean that, if you do make some sort of fish terrine, you need to make it out of carp, pike or whitefish. And cholent of course allows one to have hot food on Shabbat day without cooking. But did you know that Boston Baked Beans--the hot dish, not the candy--originated the same way? New England Protestants in Colonial America wouldn't cook on Sunday, but needed a dish that could sit in the oven and be ready to eat when they came home from church.

I love "The Book of Jewish Food" by Claudia Roden. More than just a cookbook, it is a tour of the culinary and other customs of not just Roden's family, which hails from Edot HaMizrach, but of Jews all over the world. Well worth reading and an eye-opening education even if you never try any of the recipes.

amother

Pearl

Thu, May 09 2024, 9:11 pm

amother OP wrote:

I don't see it that way. I see it that we were stuck in europe as very poor people with limited access to spices and good ingredients and developed a cuisine of mediocre peasant food

You can express what you do or don't like without being so denigrating to the cuisine passed down to me and others, and that I and many others love, value and enjoy.

Many traditional foods are not just eaten out of generational habit, but because they have deep significance. For example, farfel eaten Friday night is a segulah for parnassah. Dena613 wrote the following in a previous thread:

"At the Friday night Sabbath meal, the Baal Shem Tov, the father of Chassidut, would eat farfel. He explained that farfel is related to the Yiddish word farfallen which means done, over, finished. Whatever happened during the week or in the past is finished; Friday night is the time to put the past in the past, move on, begin anew. Thus began the custom to eat farfel during the Sabbath evening meal."

I read how one of the big Rebbes in the concentration camp would take each bite of bread on Friday night and say, the fish, the kugel, the farfel, etc. Each dish can has significance, so he let each bite of bread represent one of the foods missing from his Shabbos meal in the camps.

Let's take fish. We're supposed to eat fish on Shabbos. The gematria for fish is 7, and Shabbos is the seventh day. There are more reasons. But why gefilte fish? Ashkenazim developed gefilte fish to avoid the melacha of borer, making a fish dish with no bones. You might not personally like the taste, but it has a long history and significance. It was not developed as "mediocre peasant food."

As a BT you're off the hook for not knowing that foods that we eat on Shabbos may have religious significance, but please at least be polite in your tone and respectful of our traditions.

zaq

Thu, May 09 2024, 9:28 pm

amother Pearl wrote:

"At the Friday night Sabbath meal, the Baal Shem Tov, the father of Chassidut, would eat farfel. He explained that farfel is related to the Yiddish word farfallen which means done, over, finished. Whatever happened during the week or in the past is finished; Friday night is the time to put the past in the past, move on, begin anew. Thus began the custom to eat farfel during the Sabbath evening meal."

Obviously, this works only if Yiddish is your mamaloshen. It is utterly meaningless otherwise.

amother

Pearl

Thu, May 09 2024, 9:33 pm

zaq wrote:

Obviously, this works only if Yiddish is your mamaloshen. It is utterly meaningless otherwise.

I was explaining why these foods have tradition and meaning to the many people who eat them, so she should be respectful. They don't have to be significant to everyone to be significant to many people.

OP didn't say which traditional ashkenazi foods she was referring to when she called our cuisine "a cuisine of mediocre peasant food," so I was listing the various ones that are commonly eaten by many ashkenazim, and showing that they are not randomly eaten because we don't realize we can choose other foods than what our grandparents served.

zaq

Thu, May 09 2024, 9:35 pm

Success10 wrote:

Off topic I guess, but in seminary I was introduced to apple crumble, sweet potato pie and carrot muffins being served as sides. Which in generations prior was considered dessert but the next generation didn't have patience to wait for the end of the meal so they started calling these things kugels instead. ?

I wouldn't be so sure. I first met that now-ubiquitous cranberry-apple-oatmeal dish over 50 years ago, found it way too sweet to be kugel and concluded that it would do far better as dessert.