Passover food contemplations - how traditions change
My mother, my sister and I are all feeding people chicken soup. It is what our family has done in the middle of Passover for as long as family memory can take us. Chicken soup with kneidlach (matzah meal dumplings). I put a bit of cumin in my kneidlach this year because I can never stick to rules, but it was still funny to find that we’re all eating and serving chicken soup tonight.
My first night seder was a wild success. The keftikes were a particularly wild success. I think I shall be making more festive foods from my Jewish Greek cookbook, to see if everything is as magic as that spinach/meatball dish. It’s strange to be changing tradition by falling back on someone else’s older culinary custom, but that’s Jewish cooking for you.
Australia tends to adopt Mediterranean cuisine very easily. We used to be all about British cooking (plus green salads) and now we’re all about dolmades and pide and souvlaki. It fits the climate. Those meatballs were eaten outside at dusk and the weather was perfect for them. As the day faded we were all warm and happy.
No, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if more traditional Jewish Greek dishes edged their way into my family cuisine. And I rather suspect I’m going to be the person doing the introducing. Want to lay bets that next time I’m in Melbourne I do some careful cooking?
April 5th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Food traditions are huge at my house, my mother’s house, etc. And they are attached to emotions/memories - most of them good. A seder is about as foreign to me as the man on the moon, tho, so I’m interested to see what else you put on the menu.
April 5th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Every ethnic/religious family has their food traditions. Growing up in mid-west US my grandmother fed us cabbage, “mini-cabbages” (brussels sprouts), and lots of corned beef. Traditions can be beautiful. Nice to see that folks are still carrying on what their forebears began.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Wow, I never though to put cumin in matzo balls. In Australia do you use the Manchewitz brand for matzah meal or is that just here in the states.
April 9th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Teri, now that Passover is safely past (or as close to as makes no difference) I’ll get a little more time. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I’ll blog you a couple of recipes - covering both traditional and my own versions.
Barbara, we ate lots of corned beef through winter and brussell sprouts whenever they were available. We always corned our own meat, though it was already salted etc. I haven’t done any in years. Maybe it’s time for me to remember how to corn beef and brisket :).
There are 3 brands of matzah meal, I think. I prefer Solomons, which is the local brand -Manechewitz is ground too fine and is too dry for my taste.