Bacon and Jewish cooking
Not all Jewish cooking is kosher. It depends very much on the level and nature of Jewish identity of the cook, on the community she/he lives in, on the family cultural identity (which might be the same as the family religious identity, but then it might not) and other factors.
Take, for instance, this recipe from my grandmother’s little notebook. It has bacon. There’s no way of hiding it: there’s bacon in the recipe.
My father’s family was just as Jewish as my mother’s …. except in the small matter of the food laws.
The question becomes (for my generation and the next one) do we adhere to the higher level of kashruth we were brought up with and lose a whole segment of our family cooking tradition, or do we eat bacon? What has happened is that we’ve lost those recipes from our cooking, because the family members interested in maintaining the food laws and the family members who care about the heritage overlap quite considerably. (I’m spared the agonising decision, being allergic to fish.)
If anyone makes herring roes, I’d really like to know what it tastes like.
Herring Roes
1 tin herring roes
bacon
Wrap bacon round the roes. Grill till bacon is thoroughly heated & cooked. Place on rounds of toast or fried bread.
food history, bacon, Jewish cooking, recipe
October 12th, 2007 at 5:25 am
[...] is important, because her cooking reflects a Jewish cuisine that is either dying or dead. There are strong reasons for this. Here is another dish the family can’t make, because we keep far more kosher than my [...]
October 24th, 2007 at 10:54 am
In my opinion, you are confused. Your grandmother’s recipe is not Jewish cooking.
It’s non-jewish cooking done by a non-observant (or the kashrut laws) jew. That doesn’t make it Jewish anymore than my cooking spaghetti makes me Italian. (I’m of Russian-Polish ancestory.)
October 25th, 2007 at 8:09 am
[...] One of the commenters on this blog, Neil, has hit upon a really crucial definitional question in his comment on one of those posts where I try to puzzle out the balance between retaining a cuisine and maintaining kashruth. You can find his comment here. [...]