Talk:Jewish cuisine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judaism Portal
Jewish cuisine is part of WikiProject Judaism, a project to improve all articles related to Judaism. If you would like to help improve this and other articles related to the subject, consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Judaism articles.
Project Judaism To-do:
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Jewish cuisine falls within the scope of WikiProject Jewish culture, a project to improve all articles related to Jewish culture. If you would like to help improve this and other articles related to the subject, consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome. This template adds articles to:

Category:WikiProject Jewish culture articles
Project Jewish culture To-do:
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Food Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Sources

I was looking at this article's sources, and it seems to all come from the 1901-1906 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia. It reads that way, too! Someone with more knowledge then me should have a go at editing this article a lot. RoseRose16 08:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Essig Fleisch

I edited out the addition of "fish-cake, as an ingredient of Essig fliesch-this is impossibe as mixing of fish and meat was not done by any Ashkenazim —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.164.17.166 (talk) 00:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kugel

I don't know what sources were used, but kugel ALWAYS refers to a baked dish. Originally it was baked inside the cholent (stew) and then was baked in a separate dish.

I can only assume the section on food preperation for Shabbat is hopelessly out of date, since I have never heard cholent called "kugel," or kugel called "cholent." Perhaps it was true historically, but certainly not today. If someone knows the history, they should properly fix up that section. --Eliyak 20:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sefrina and Dafina

In south Africa, a cholent style dish called sefrina or dafina is made for Shabbat.

[edit] Bad English

This article is poorly written (it reads like it was written by a non-native English speaker), rather unorganized, and often quite confusing. I hope it will be revised by someone with a better grasp of Jewish cuisine and the English language. Fishanthrope 02:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some [[Wikip include several German books from the late 19th Century.

I will not attempt to improve this article myself since I know almost nothing about the subject. TomH 00:11, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The worst of the stilted language is in th long, boring History section, which reads like a chunk of somebody's dissertation. It's beyond me to revise it at this point. In any case, I think perhaps it ought to be a separate article. I moved it to the end, which may help slightly. I also wonder whether the lists of foods should be separated from the main article somehow.

[edit] Pumpkin Soup

Does pumpkin soup really belong on the list?

No. It's gone now. Jayjg (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] By region?

Does anyone who knows about Yemienite Jewish cuisine comment? Also, I noticed that many israeli foods are not on the list, like falafel...

Foods like falafel are more general middle eastern cuisine, it's not strictly Jewish, so I wouldn't say it belongs here. -- Experimental Hobo Infiltration Droid (talk) 16:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] hamantaschen

Does anyone know why people think haman wore a three cornered hat, and why the cookies are considered his hat if (i might be wrong, i do not know much yiddish)the word Tash is an ear, not a hat? I just am confused by the explanation that the cookies represent haman's hat when the cookies are called haman's ear...clarify please anyone??

It's just a joke. As are most things on Purim. And you are correct that it's an ear, I think in america they "decided" it was a hat so that you are not eating "Hamans ear" (which doesn't sound good in english, but sounds fine in yiddish). And in Israel three sided hats are, if not commonly worn, at least sung about - there is a popular childrens song about one.
(Lakovah sheli shalosh pinot, shalosh pinot lakovah sheli, ve iloo hayoo lo shalosh pinot lo haya ze hakovah sheli.)
(My hat has three corners, three corners to my hat, and if it didn't have three corners, it would not be my hat.)
71.199.123.24
Tash is actually a pocket in Yiddish. The Hebrew term, Oznei Haman, means Haman's ears. Nothing about a hat. I don't really know where it originates. Did his hat look like a Colonial American tri-cornered hat? Valley2city 08:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cheapness??

This article needs definite revision. It said that Jews use beef fat because of its cheapness, which is obviousley a terrible sterotype and totally not true. I removed that line because it is anti-semitic.

Also, the article mentions Jewish communities in Eastern and Central Europe in the present tense that sadly no longer exist. It needs to be thoroughly rewritten.

[edit] Much more is needed

The content of this article needs a lot of work. It mostly includes discussion of a few dishes from Ashkenazi cuisine. The cuisines of Sephardic, middle-eastern and Israeli cultures should also be incorporated. It would be especially interesting to have an article that compares similar versions of dishes as they appear in different regions. Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food would be a good starting point as a reference. Unfortunately, I am not able to write a revision myself, but I know enough to see that this article is misleading due to the narrow focus and significant gaps in content. (I have a related concern that Jewish cuisine is not included in the listing of "Middle Eastern Cuisines" in the Cuisine article.) WDM 17:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)WDM

[edit] Snakes?

The article currently says Certain foods, such as such as pork, octopus, and snakes are forbidden. Well, that's true, but are those the three best examples we can think of? I'm not aware of snake being commonly eaten among non-Jews in the countries where most Jews live currently or in the countries where most readers of the English Wikipedia live. (Some places, yes.) Wouldn't shrimp or lobster be a better example than snake? --Metropolitan90 05:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grapes as ritual food?

I know I'm not the frumiest of the frum, but what ritual are grapes involved in? I edited the short list of common ritual foods from "grapes, wine and matzoh" to " wine and bread (both leavened and unleavened)." This is more accurate, no?

Adam Holland 17:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient Food/Dishes?

If anyone has any archeological info. foods eaten by the ancient Israelite please submit it. I think a section on this should be included for historic reasons.

Bill Leher (Feb 4, 2007) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.98.128.230 (talk) 02:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

I think the historic material should go in a separate article. (This one is getting more bloated than I do on yontif.) --RandomHumanoid 16:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chraine

I didn't see Chraine listed in the food list. I hate the stuff but nevertheless it should be added Canking 17:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I have already added it, but you could have just put it in too! (And I love the stuff. Have you ever tried homemade? :) --RandomHumanoid 16:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sabbath meal

A typical Sabbath meal is chicken, mashed potatoes...and borscht?? What kind of loony generalization is that? This page needs major revision. --Gilabrand 15:06, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] poorly organized

This article is poorly organized and needs a new layout. I am not an expert at moving large sections of text around, but if someone can do it, I think the long lists of food at the beginning should be moved to the bottom of the page (unless there is some other solution)--Gilabrand 06:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC).

I agree, this article is something of a mess. It is heavily biased toward ashkenazi foods and refers to a second article for sephardi specialties. (That doesn't seem fair.) It also is confusing with respect to particular yom tov foods and issues, such as kitniyos, matzah (there are many different types of matzah -- don't just mean shmura matzah here), gebrokts, etc., and tries to compile a mishmash of issues into a single article, e.g. how families break the yom kippur fast. (I don't know anyone who has "tea and cake" first.) The article is also quite repetitive. It needs a fair amount of work to improve. Probably a complete minimalist rewrite wouldn't hurt. --RandomHumanoid 06:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Hear, hear! I agree - but would quibble on your assumption that the tea & cake is wrong. This is a very common way of breaking the fast in Israel (I know lots of people who do this), because many women also spend the day in shul, so when they get home in the evening, they first have to warm up or prepare the food, especially those who serve entire meat meals (where I come from we always had dairy after the fast - and my mother hired a maid to set up before we got home from shul).--Gilabrand 07:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, chulz l’aretz, I've never seen tea & cake, but I guess that's just one more downside to living in golus. :) Yasher koach on all the reorganizing! I look forward to seeing the finished product. --RandomHumanoid 07:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
User:Gilabrand is doing a beautiful job organizing things. I have a few remaining concerns. This is generally the frum or Israeli perspective, e.g., most American families don't use shmura matzah at the seder. (In fact, most American families likely wouldn't even know what it is.) Also, I'm going to suggest separating the discussion of historical (Biblical and Talmudic) periods into a separate article. That has little relevance to what people eat today. Also, while I love that you cite gemorahs, many people will have no idea what these citations mean. This should be explained somewhere. Additionally, this is still Ashkenazi focused. That could be helped by adding in traditional Moroccan, Yemeni, etc., foods to the list; while my Sephardi friends many know what cholent is, it certainly wouldn't occur to them that one might eat knedlach or kishke. Finally, someone might want to cover the historic, economic reasons that so much Ashkenzi food is focused around organ meats. They were less expensive and finer cuts of meat (e.g., steak) were well out of the average budget, even for Shabbos. --RandomHumanoid 14:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Humanoid. It's Shabbat in a couple of minutes so I will be logging off. The stuff I have done today is only organizational, to get the article in some reasonable shape for proper edting, rewriting and adding information. There is a "stub" (if you want to call it that) related to "Sephardic" cuisine that is a real mess - I added something to it today - but if there is anything worthy there (which I am not sure about), it could be incorporated in this article to balance out the Ashkenazi slant. Shabbat shalom--Gilabrand 15:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Need some help here

I went through and properly linked the citations into a "notes" section, however many of these citations are written improperly with many abbreviations and sometimes they just don't make any sense at all. As well, any of these books, including the Bible which is cited numerous times should be listed under references and many are not. In addition, the section that I moved all of the history information into reads completely of original research as much of it is cited from the Bible and not secondary sources which is against Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:No original research. As I wouldn't want to lose some of this information I was hoping someone had some secondary sources that can back up this information.--Chef Christopher Allen Tanner, CCC 20:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that a lot of these references simply don't seem to be widely available any more. A few of them can be found through Amazon, but apart from Montefiore and Kreisler-Greenbaum I don't know if any of them are available as ebooks (which I would say is the most practical form for our purposes, which is why I added them). Roden is still in print (I have a copy), and the Jewish Encyclopedia is available in ebook form but horribly outdated (much of the article comes from there, and the fact is that most of the culture it describes simply doesn't exist anymore because of WWII), making the article itself horribly outdated. Even worse for our purposes is that the bulk of information available in the United States is slanted almost exclusively towards Ashkenazic cooking, which brings up issues of WP:BIAS -- as far as currently-in-print authors go, I would suggest Joyce Goldstein and Edda Servi Machlin, but they don't begin to cover everything. (I would like to suggest Jeff Smith's The Frugal Gourmet Keeps The Feast regarding Biblical foods, but as well-intentioned as it was, I can't, as Smith's historical research was often very Christian-biased and faulty.)
The organizational issues are nontrivial as well, but my strong point is research, not layout. A thing to keep in mind is that Roden's book contains 800 recipes and only scratches the surface of Jewish cuisine -- there's an incredibly large amount of information just on the basics of the subject, and it may be a very tough reorg. Haikupoet 17:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
My biggest problem with the article however is not getting current academic information as I know I can pretty easily get a hold of that. My issue is with the "History" section as it seems to be written in a primary source documented manner as the citations mention books of the Bible often, unless this was interpretation from the Jewish Encyclopedia, and if that is the fact then that book should be citied, not the Bible because as is now the entire section violates the no original research policy and might need to be deleted in favor of rewriting it completely as there is also much POV in there as well.--Chef Christopher Allen Tanner, CCC 19:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Corn"

It says ancient Hebrews ate a paste made of corn and other ingredients. How did they get corn back then? It is cited but it can't be right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.243.144.178 (talk) 00:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Corn in this context is a general term for grain. What is more specifically refered to as maize got it's common name when the term "Indian corn" (ie "Indian grain") was abbreviated.
Peter Isotalo 04:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Almost, but not quite. Originally, corn meant the same as the German word Korn, any kind of grain requiring grinding, e.g. wheat, rye, barley etc. It still has this meaning in Britain, as maize does not grow properly that far north (it's a length of day thing, not climate). P.M.Lawrence 203.194.50.250 (talk) 09:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion of Holiday Cuisine sections?

Pretty much all the "holiday cuisine" sections are quite short and in bullet forms, excluding Passover. I'm sure they can be expanded, I'm just not exactly sure how to do it. Surely there must be some traditional food particularly for Sukkot, for example? Right now it only mentions meals eaten in the sukkah. The same things could be said for Yom Kippur.

[edit] Perspective badly needed

This is a fascinating subject (I know a little about it) but still a pretty terrible article. One of the things it needs is rewriting with a non-Jewish readership in mind, because right now it takes a fair acquaintance with Jewish traditions and culture for granted: for example, the text of the section on Kashrut never explains or even refers to the word itself, or the fact that it's the noun equivalent of the adjective 'kosher', let alone telling anything about the history of the concept or its possible origins. It just sets out the laws of Kashrut as if for the benefit of someone who intended to follow them, which I'm guessing will not be the intention of the average curious reader. Likewise, the coverage is far too biased in favour of Ashkenazi cuisine. In Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food, one of the greatest books on this subject, the section on Sephardic cuisine is about twice as long as the section on Ashkenazi cuisine. Sephardic cuisine is more complex, more diverse and more varied than Ashkenazi, owing to being spread over a far wider geographical area (I'm not saying it's better, just that there are a lot more recipes). The article should reflect this. Lexo (talk) 12:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delicatessen?

I see the Hebrew National link has been removed. Makes sense, since there was no mention of that kind of food in the article. HOWEVER. For a large number of non-jews, the stereotypical kosher deli is the only exposure to "jewish cuisine." There's no mention here of it, or of why that kind of food became associated with Jews (preserved meat, eastern-european recipes adapted to kashrut, knishes and pickles, the diaspora and immigration, etc.). This needs a section. FiveRings (talk) 15:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)