Why does shabbat food have to be traditional ashkenazi food?

amother

DarkViolet

Mon, May 13 2024, 5:26 pm

amother Honey wrote:

Can someone start a spinoff of how strange, strong, and smelly Sefardi food is and let's see if no one is offemded...

Tell us why it's strange. Have you ever eaten it? Would love to hear what dishes you've tried and how many times you've had sefardi food.

I personally don't find your comment offensive at all. I thihnk it's just ignorant and I have a suspicion that you haven't eaten sefardi food in a sefardi household on shabbos.

amother

DarkViolet

Mon, May 13 2024, 5:27 pm

imaima wrote:

Why deny a fact of life? Jewish ashkenazi good has its origin in peasant food.
The traditional recipes are poor people food.
Yes they didn’t have money for fish or meat but saved it for shabbos and stretched it by making gefilte and cholent.
For them these ingredients were a highlight.
For us, eating sushi or other exotic foods during the week but making a peasant stew for shabbos misses the point of shabbos as the most important day of the week.

Right. Like why is a fact offensive to you? We were peasants! That's how it was. BH we are no longer, but I totally understand why people like our traditional food.

Comptroller

Mon, May 13 2024, 5:33 pm

amother DarkViolet wrote:

Right. Like why is a fact offensive to you? We were peasants! That's how it was. BH we are no longer, but I totally understand why people like our traditional food.

What's wrong with being peasants? Together with hashem they make the food to feed us.

Chasidism was originally a movement back to the earth, back to professions like peasant or artisan.

amother

Goldenrod

Mon, May 13 2024, 5:58 pm

amother DarkViolet wrote:

I'm Ashkenazi and love, love sefaradi food!!!!

amother

Peru

Mon, May 13 2024, 6:02 pm

amother DarkViolet wrote:

I believe the poster to whom you were responding was being sarcastic. Some people took a pp's remarks that Ashkenazi food was boring, cheap, and tasteless peasant food to be offensive (can't imagine why)(Sarcasm alert). The poster you're responding to is clearly trying to point out that the OP was offensive. Evidently OP dislikes Ashkenazi food and prefers something else, possibly Sefaradi (possibly Eskimo or Australian aboriginal), and this poster is trying to show that OP and others like her would be offended if someone characterized their cuisine as strange and strong-smelling, etc.

I agree that there was no need for OP to post in such a denigrating manner. It would have been enough for her to ask if there's a reason why Ashkenazi food is always shown as THE classic Shabbos food and is it OK for her to serve other cuisines.

The fact of the matter is that one gets used to strange things if one is exposed to them often enough, and foods that you may consider offensive-smelling can grow on you to the point that you enjoy them.

zaq

Mon, May 13 2024, 6:15 pm

amother DarkViolet wrote:

I think it's bread.

Poor people's food changes with location and time. Whatever is expensive or hard to come by becomes rich people's food, and that which is plentiful and cheap becomes poor people's food. White flour, for example, was once the ultimate rich people's food; poor people made do with flour that still contained the bran. If you ever read Heidi , which I doubt, you'll recall the scene where Heidi goes to live with a well-to-do family and is entranced by the soft white rolls served at each meal. She hoards her rolls to bring back home to a toothless old woman who has trouble eating the peasant bread available to her.

How things have changed! Today, whole-grain flour is twice or triple the price of white flour, whole-grain breads are sold in uppity grocery boutiques for $10 a loaf, and white bread is the ultimate poor people's food.

And rice is poor people's food in many countries, especially the Far East, where rice grows in abundance but wheat does not. Avocadoes and other tropical fruits are expensive in the Northeastern US and cheap in Central America. Salmon costs more than beef where I live and probably where you do, too, but if you lived on a Pacific island, chances are that salmon and other less-familiar fish would be a staple in your diet, caught fresh every day. The perception of food as being appropriate for rich or poor has nothing to do with its actual nutritional value.

Comptroller

Mon, May 13 2024, 6:21 pm

amother Honey wrote:

I think rice is poor peoples food.

Rice requires more work to plant, because you have to arrange irrigated terraces to plant it and you have to transplant the seedlings once they have grown.

So in general, rice is more expensive than millet or wheat.

Of course, in countries where rice is the main staple, poor people eat rice too, albeit lower quality rice. and maybe less of it.

amother

Daffodil

Mon, May 13 2024, 8:44 pm

amother DarkViolet wrote:

That's was not her point at all
She was being sarcastic

amother

DarkViolet

Mon, May 13 2024, 8:46 pm

amother Daffodil wrote:

That's was not her point at all
She was being sarcastic

I thought she was offended by this thread, no?

I was saying that a) no one should be offended by someone's food preferences and b) in OP's case she's actually eaten Ashkenazi food and decided it's not her type... naming a random style of food to throw under the bus is just ignorant not offensive.

amother

Peach

Mon, May 13 2024, 8:58 pm

amother Goldenrod wrote:

I'm Ashkenazi and love, love sefaradi food!!!!

It really boils down to do you like cumin, cilantro and hawwaj. Hawaj is a spice mix and I don’t know what’s in it but I suspect it involves cumin, coriander, and allspice. Personally I find all those offensive. Sephardim also use some spices that are similar to Ashkenaz ingredients. They use turmeric which mainly just adds color which is what Ashkenazim do with paprika. Turmeric is a prettier color but it adds a bitterness I don’t like. They use tamarind paste in some of their meats. Ashkenazim use prune butter but mainly in baking, not in meat. I don’t like the taste of tamarind or prune. You can tell I’m not a fan of Sephardic flavor food profiles. I’ve eaten authentic Indian, kosher but prepared by someone who knows the cuisine. It was a bad experience for me. Some people like me don’t have adventurous palates and can’t adapt to foreign tastes. Same seems to be the case with op. The only thing confusing about op is she’s lumping all Ashkenazi cooking together. There are so many different styles and a lot of different minhagim. Same as Sephardim. Persians and Moroccans don’t cook the same foods either.

Ruchi

Mon, May 13 2024, 9:34 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?

My Ashkenazi food is no way bland. It's tasty and flavourful.

BTW, to suggest that Ashkenazi shabbos food, is bland, is Quite an insult aswell as a false blanket statement to make.
Any Food, from any ethnicity or race is bland when not seasoned/flavoured properly.

Perhaps your tastebuds need hawaij, cumin and turmeric, in order for a dish not to be considered bland.

B'Syata D'Shmya

Mon, May 13 2024, 10:53 pm

amother DarkViolet wrote:

It really shouldn't be offensive to anyone when they dis a general type of food.
Yes, if someone is eating gefilte fish next to you, it would be wrong to say "yuck! how are you eating that?!"
But stating that you don't like it on a forum is totally fine.

Why are you offended?

OP has the right to state what she wants on a forum, same as me. She wasnt just stating a personal preference but labeling and inferring.

The way I understood her opening post was clear social pressure, the implication that " I am not a peasant who would serve kugel or gefilte fish, and if you serve it, you are serving bland, boring, peasant dishes at your Shabbos table.
If she wanted to just state she doesnt like it, that would be fine. Its a matter of taste. Some love cilantro, some hate it. Some like sweet wine, some like dry wine etc.

A whole lotta people are affected by the stuff written here, make no mistake. Social pressure is real. Leads to posters who wrote "Why are you shoving that peasant food into me? " as if anyone is forcing their food choices on someone else. or "how dare you serve kugel and chulent when we come for Shabbos meal" (paraphrasing cause I dont have the time to go back and find the words verbatim).

Peoples Shalom Bayis can be affected here. I can just hear a new DIL sniffing to her husband, I dont want to go to your Mothers, she serves such peasant food...

tigerwife

Tue, May 14 2024, 12:15 am

Comptroller wrote:

I find it interesting that so many users here are offended when people say that typical shabbos food has its origin in poor people's food (or "peasant" food) or tastes bland.

Why do they take it so personally?

You don’t think it’s insulting to tell someone that their cooking is bland and peasant-like?

I’d feel awful if someone said it to me.

And this is coming from someone who never serves gefilte (not my taste) but would never pass on chicken soup Friday night 😋. I usually vary the mains but in general we look forward to the food we serve on shabbos. I’d never make potato kugel for a weeknight dinner, but the association with Shabbos makes it something to look forward to. Food is so much more than the recipes- it’s the experiences, the memories of eating together.

To answer OP- it doesn’t have to be traditional Ashkenazic food. It should be what you like! But personally, I love saving specific foods for shabbos. It makes them more special.

Comptroller

Tue, May 14 2024, 2:39 am

tigerwife wrote:

Not really.
I had a regular guest who found my food bland. She said so in a nice way and I learned to season better, over time.
Oh, and I had another guest who said it in a not so nice way. That was also OK with me.

My favorite seasoning is fresh garlic, I use it a lot. So there are also guests who don't like garlic and say so.

B'Syata D'Shmya

Tue, May 14 2024, 4:27 am

amother Blonde wrote:

https://rebgershonribner.com/seeking-out-japanese-food

He says eat whatever you want for the shabbos seudah as long as it is bakovodik and not casual. No need for gefilta fish.

Wrong, he concludes that he's not sure.
Did you hear him saying that a heimish yid will serve foods from our mesorah and non heimish yid who is not sensitive to the kabalah will consider foods from umos ha'olam?

Talking about sushi, he mentions not being the first to run out and get it. But once it's mainstream it's OK to eat. He doesn't specify Shabbos.

Please listen again, it's less than 3 minutes

B'Syata D'Shmya

Tue, May 14 2024, 4:34 am

Comptroller wrote:

So you conclude from your private situation that this public post on SM is the same and since you reacted one way, everyone should?

Reality

Tue, May 14 2024, 5:24 am

Comptroller wrote:

I am so curious what is a nice way to tell someone their food is bland?

amother

Royalblue

Tue, May 14 2024, 6:54 am

Comptroller wrote:

That is socially off your guest are lucky that you are so chill. I would not raise my kids to say that to someone as I consider it rude.