I feel like I'm constantly ranting about how people always equate Jewish food with Eastern European food: matzoh balls and gefilte fish, bagel and lox. I didn't try matzoh ball soup until college, was introduced to lox at a weekend sleepover in elementary school (and thought it was really weird;
I've come around), and have yet to meet a gefilte fish I want to eat.
So, I wanted to share some photos from an event I participated in September. Having had so many "yes, I'm Jewish, and no, I never tried matzoh ball soup until college" conversations, I jumped at the chance to demo a traditional Iranian Jewish recipe at
A Taste of the East, a night welcoming Rosh Hashana -- the Jewish New Year, with flavors from The Middle East and Mediterranean. It was a night of dinner, music, and storytelling, all celebrating the culture of Sephardic Jews.
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| LISA GRISSOM |
I performed one of three demos of Sephardic Jewish food. Orly Olivier of
Petit Takett made Tunisian harissa, and Deborah Gorman of
Sorbabe made bourekas–Turkish-Greek cookies filled with ground walnuts and dipped in a sweet syrup. And I made
faloodeh sib–a refreshing combination of rosewater and shredded apples that is the traditional Yom Kippur fast-breaking food among Iranian Jews.
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| LISA GRISSOM |
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| LISA GRISSOM |
It was a great time. I'd never done anything like this before, but cooking and
chatting in an industrial kitchen with these ladies was a treat and an education, and sharing my family recipes with a warm, interested crowd, while being schooled on some foods that were new to me, felt wonderful.
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| NICOLE YOUNESI |
As people milled through the space, I stood at a table decorated with black and white photos of my grandparents and shredded apples against a box grater, and then added sugar, water, rosewater, and ice to perfectly balance the rosewater's intense aroma with just the right amount of sweet.
I had a couple friends, a few cousins, and my parents in attendance. I was really happy to have these familiar faces in the crowd when we arrived at the storytelling portion of the evening. I spoke about my uncle, a distinguished physician, affectionately known by his grandkids as "Lulu", who would leave Yom Kippur services at the synagogue early to go home and prepare
faloodeh sib for his family. I wasn't the only one tearing up as we remembered this sweet man.
Recalling old memories of food and family, as we make new ones with new friends. More of this, please.
