Encyclopedia of Food & Culture | Judaism

JUDAISM. Jewish food is primarily defined by the dietary laws of Judaism. The Judaic religion is prescriptive in the selection, cooking preparation, and consumption of specific food items. Daily practice is meticulously structured to comply with Jewish law, the Halakhah, and the community of Jews is organized as a community of religiously complying eaters. Specific dishes, food combinations, and cooking preparations are prescribed for religious festivals. Throughout their history of multiple migrations and diaspora (dispersion), the Jews have been in contact with different cultures, languages, and cuisines. This has generated a diversified Jewish cuisine.

Dietary Laws

Under the classifying terminology of kosher versus nonkosher, the system of dietary prescriptions and prohibitions in Judaism primarily involves the consumption of animal flesh, and is codified in the Pentateuch, in Leviticus (chapter 11). Typical edible animals are domestic, have a vegetarian diet, and are physiologically "plain," that is, not affected by any disease or anatomical or physiological defect. In fact, as Mary Douglas has pointed out in Purity and Danger, the dietary prohibitions of Leviticus include a biblical narrative logic. They are organized along the mythological lines that structure the cosmological section of Genesis. Thus the animal kingdom is classified into three categories: those living on the earth, those living in the water, and those living in the air. In the first category, only mammal quadruped ruminants with split hooves are allowed on the Jewish table. Striking exceptions to this rule are emphatically mentioned in the text. Among the animals living on the earth, the swine, the camel, the hare, and the rock-badger are specifically excluded from the Jewish table because they satisfy only one condition for edibility; that is, either they are a ruminant, or they have a split hoof, instead of both conditions required. The category of animals living in the air also functions as an exclusive system, when it provides a list of animals strictly prohibited on the table. Most of these animals are carnivorous birds, while the bat is eliminated for being a flying mammal, an utmost abomination by the Leviticus standards. Finally, animals living in the water should have fins and scales to be considered "pure" and edible, while those crawling on the earth or living underground are also considered "impure."

In addition to these dietary prohibitions concerning the selection of animals based on anatomical and physiological criteria, biblical law forbids the consumption of blood (Deuteronomy 12:23) and the mixture, in the kitchen and at the table, of dairy foods and meat dishes (Exodus 23:19). The former rule thus requires the strict observance of slaughtering techniques designed to evacuate the largest amount of blood from meat cuts before they are distributed to the marketplace. Some secular scholars have interpreted the regulation of Jewish food practices by religious law and sacred scriptures as evidence that the idea of God is at the core of the Jewish table. This spirit, although viewed by some as being motivated by hygienic concerns, has generated a complex system of community institutional organization that involves the technical training of rabbinical slaughterers (shohatim), their appointment in slaughtering houses, and the establishment of a system of verification of the enforcement of dietary laws. The latter requirement is often handled by secular agencies, in collaboration with local rabbinical authorities. In New York, for example, the presence of the largest urban Jewish population in the world has generated a system in which the state government is in charge of the enforcement of kosher laws in the local food stores, especially those selling meat displayed as being kosher (Fried, 2000).

Jewish Festival Foods

At the core of all Jewish festival tables is the sanctified bread, or challah. Oven-baked and usually excluding dairy ingredients, the loaves are braided, though other shapes can be found in various Jewish traditions. Another typical festive dish is the Ashkenazic gefilte fish (Yiddish, "stuffed fish"), opening sabbath or holiday meals as a good omen. Most holiday menus are linked to the religious festivals and have a narrative function. Examples include the fried pastries served during Hanukkah. The holiday of Hanukkah is a ritual celebration of the biblical section narrating the Maccabees' victory over the Seleucid Greeks in the second century B.C.E. and the following miracle that kept the ritual oil lit for eight days in the Second Jerusalem Temple after it had been devastated by the Greek armies. Thus, in the Jewish communities of central and eastern European origin, the tradition requires that latkes, fried potato pancakes, be served. The equivalent in the Jewish traditions of the Mediterranean and the Middle East is usually fried buns served with honey. Purim celebrations include the baking of multiple pastries, a playful reminder of the defeat of Haman. Thus, Ashkenazic families serve hamantashen or "Haman's hats," poppy seed–filled triangular pastries.

The Jewish festival of Passover, a ritual narration of the Jewish slaves' exodus from Pharaoh's Egypt, includes special food prescriptions. During the eight days of the holiday, the only bread allowed for consumption is unleavened bread, to commemorate the bread that the slaves took in their hasty overnight flight from slavery. This unleavened bread, called matzo in Hebrew, is industrially baked today as a thin square flat cracker according to the Ashkenazic (eastern and central European) tradition. In Sephardic (Mediterranean and Middle Eastern) traditions, matzo has a round shape. The Passover food restrictions also require that no leavened substance be included either in the kitchen and menus or in the household at all. Some North African Jewish communities exclude rice from their Passover diet. Some also exclude chicken for fear of finding grain in the gizzard. Thus most Passover pastries and carbohydrate dishes are prepared with matzo flour or cracked matzo. Ashkenazic Jews traditionally serve matzo balls boiled in chicken soup, matzo brei (a fried, egg-coated matzo pancake), while North African Jews often enjoy the flavors of a couscous made out of cracked matzo.

Shavuot, or festival of the Torah, is marked by the consumption of honey and dairy foods, with which the Torah is allegorically identified. Blintzes, cheese pancakes, are displayed on Ashkenazic tables, while Sephardic traditions include yogurt or baklava. The favorite dishes served for Rosh Hashanah ( Jewish new year) include heavily sweetened dishes such as the Ashkenazic tzimmes (a sweet carrot and raisin stew) and honey cake, all of which are designed to welcome a good and sweet new year. The fall festival of Sukkoth (also Sukkot) includes borsht, a beet and cabbage-based soup, served in households of Polish origin.

Sabbath Foods

The Jews' food history is characterized by their many migrations and their status as a minority group. From this viewpoint, it is as diverse as Jewish cultures, languages, and community experiences have been, as Jews have related to the multiple cultures and populations they have been in contact with throughout the world. Jewish food has operated, both practically and symbolically, and not unlike Jewish languages, as Jewish versions of local nutritional habits. An illustration can be found in most dishes served for the most important holiday of the Jewish ritual calendar, the Sabbath. The tshulent is the Ashkenazic version of this sabbatical dish. The Yiddish name of this dish includes two French words, chaud ('warm') and lent ('slow'), a linguistic combination testifying not only to the many influences on Jewish culture and languages, but also to the specifically Jewish character of this dish's cooking technique. It is in effect cooked slowly for about twelve hours between the beginning of Sabbath (Friday night) and the Saturday lunch. This long and slow cooking is the result of the sabbatical prohibition on lighting fire during the twenty-four hours between Friday night and Saturday night. This implies that once the Sabbath candle is lit on Friday evening, any food starting to cook then will end up being overcooked when it is consumed on Saturday. In North Africa and the Middle East, this dish is called by either of the Arabic terms dfina or tfina ('buried'), skhina or hammin ('warm'). The first set of terms refers to the burying of the pot underneath blankets or even in an underground oven designed to keep warmth in. The second set of terms refers to the permanent warmth of the dish. All Sabbath dishes are composed of heavy and varied ingredients found in the local marketplace: beef, grain, potatoes, vegetables, peas or beans. In eastern North Africa, the tradition was to use green vegetables such as spinach or Swiss chard, fresh fava beans, or cardoons. This ingredient use is probably a custom borrowed from local Muslim neighbors. Muslims of these regions serve very green dishes for major holiday dinners, in the belief that green was the Prophet's favorite color. Thus local Jews have integrated this color symbol into their own major holidays.

The many migrations that have affected the Jews of eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East throughout the twentieth century have resulted, in the early twenty-first century, in the massive secularization of the Jewish migrants in the hosting countries. Traditional Jewish food has thus become a marker of ethnic identity rather than a part of religious observance. On the other side, these traditional dishes, because they are the last ritual items to be given up in the process of Jewish secularization, constitute practical and social frameworks allowing religious observance to be maintained, even in its minimal scope.

See also Bagel; Bread, Symbolism of; Christianity; Diaspora; Fasting and Abstinence: Judaism; Feasts, Festivals, and Fasts; Islam; Passover; Religion and Food; Taboos; United States: Ethnic Cuisines.

Joëlle Bahloul