Food History

I was going to give you a lard or ham recipe from The Neighborhood Cook Book, but the heart has gone out of me. I had the annual “Why aren’t you putting up a Christmas tree this Sunday?” discussion – this year with a group of pre-teens – and I have suddenly lost my enthusiasm for spreading the less obvious Jewish eating habits.

This is one of the major phenomena that keeps us (any cultural or religious minority) in line: when the world demands we be like them, we try very hard to be like ourselves and somehow, in the trying, become more like each other. This is one of the major reasons why not eating pork products is as much a cultural as a religious habit – it responds to outsiders’ questioning Judaism and Jewishness as much as it is a response to religious law. In fact, for many Jewish, maybe it’s more s response to the outside world than to the inner religious one.

Not everyone responds in the same way. I don’t eat ham or bacon or lard, but I rather like it that I can carve ham if asked. Other people keep glatt kosher and are amazingly strict. Still other people like their bacon with their breakfast.

Within various Jewish communities, social pressures aren’t as consistent as outsiders may think. Take this advertisement from The Neighbourhood Cook Book, for instance.

“The art of cookery depends on the quality of ingredients used. That is why more and more women every day insist upon using

HAM, BACON, LARD

These products are known for their absolute purity and wholesomeness. Under the watchful eye of the U.S. Government Inspectors, COLUMBIA BRAND Products are prepared to meet the most exacting demands for cleanliness and sanitation.

AT ALL BEST DEALERS
Made by
UNION MEAT COMPANY

In answering these ads, please mention Neighborhood Cook Book.”

So, not only recipes, but ads: ham, bacon and lard were very much a part of some Jewish lives in the US in the nineteenth century. Pressures, internal and external mean that – to study Jewish cooking over a couple of centuries even just in the English speaking world – I have to keep an eye open for these advertisements and for recipes and for reactions to both internal and external pressures.

And I always have to remember the Christmas tree argument. It goes “Why don’t you have a Christmas tree?” I always wonder why it doesn’t go “Why do you have one?” It doesn’t, however. Pressures are strange and subtle and pressures on minorities are particularly interesting. Without them, maybe more Jewish cookbooks would have really great ads for pork products.

PS The photo is entirely unrelated to the post. I am thinking of using it whenever I post on the Southern Gothic dinner and I wanted to see what it looked like. It’s the right age and very Gothic - it just comes from a bit too far south, is the problem.