ICJudaism: A Teacher’s Guide to Judaism

      Hosted by ICTeachers                                                                Formerly: Mike’s Rough Guide to Judaism

Disclaimer:

The contents of these pages represent the author’s personal views, experience and understanding.
There are bound to be some things here that some Jews would disagree with.

 

Jewish Food 2

Festival Foods

Many Jewish festivals have traditionally associate foods:

Rosh Hashanah: This is the Jewish New Year, which usually falls in September. At this time we eat foods which remind us of the cycle of the year, of God's bounty and of our hope for a good and sweet year ahead. Traditionally at Rosh Hashanah we eat apples (round) dipped in honey (sweet), honey cake and pomegranates (our good deeds should be as many as the seeds). Instead of the usual plaited challah loaves with which we usually begin a Shabbat or festival meal we use round loaves (The shape is different but the bread is the same).

Yom Kippur: It's a strict fast! No food or water for 25 hours!

Sukkot: Sukkot is the festival of the fruit harvest so fruit is the order of the day - particularly fruits that grow in the Middle East, such as dates.

Chanukah: On Chanukah we celebrate the miracle of the oil, when a single day's consecrated oil is said to have kept the everlasting lamp in the temple alight for 8 days, after the Maccabees had recovered the Temple from the invading Syrians. Foods cooked in oil are traditional at this time. Favourites include doughnuts and potato latkes (pronounced lut-kəz) which are flat round cakes made of grated potato, flour, egg and, often, onion, which are shaped and deep fried.

Purim: Purim celebrates the escape of the Jews from genocide, planned by a Persian vizier of long ago. His name was Haman and a favourite food at Purim is Chumantashen (literally, Haman's pockets - in Hebrew they are called oznei Haman -  Haman’s ears). They are small triangular turnovers, usually filled with poppy seeds but can be filled with anything, eg, dates, figs etc. A tradition in my family (and maybe in others, too) is to eat chickpeas with a light sprinkling of pepper - we call them Purim peas (they are best hot, but can be eaten cold).

Pesach: The feast of matzo (unleavened bread). During Pesach Jews eat only matzo when they would otherwise eat bread. Matzo comes as flat crispy sheets very like water biscuits (but not quite so hard). There are special, extra strict dietary rules for Pesach. We must avoid anything that has fermented, or might have fermented (except wine) and avoid cereal flour (except when it is made into matzo by a special super-quick process that avoids any danger of the flour fermenting - less than 18 minutes between grinding the flour and finishing the baking). Ashkenazi custom is not to have rice either. Because we are celebrating our escape from slavery and persecution in Egypt we do like to eat cake. A favourite is plava (pronounced playver), a light crumbly, sponge-like cake made with potato flour and ground almonds instead of the usualwheat flour.

Shavuot: Originally the celebration of the wheat harvest, Shavuot is now the time when we celebrate the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai. We celebrate the richness of Torah for both body and soul by eating foods sweetened with honey (honey cake again) and by eating milk and cheese dishes such as cheesecake and cheese blintzes (pancakes with cream cheese rolled inside).

 

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