Eat it again, Sam (1)

Woody Allen, struck by the beauty, happiness and carefreeness of Hanna and her sisters, thought of converting to Christianity to become like them. He return home and put three objects on the table to inspired religious mediation: a crucifix, (Wonder) white bread and a jar of (Hellman’s) mayonnaise. But the ways of the goyim (non-Jews) are not easy: it does not just imply to always think about the suffering on the Cross but also involves eating tasteless and spongy bread on which is spread an equally tasteless and slimy substance with mysterious ingredients. This was too much for Woody. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant(wasp) is just another term for White Bread. In order to become one of them, Woody would have to give up a cuisine that is thousands of years old, those of the shtetl (small countries) of Eastern Europe, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine and various corners of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the result of the Ashkenazi exodus. By eating white bread he would have had to give up pumpernickel, a black and slightly sweet bread, and bagels, donut-shaped rolls which are boiled before being baked in order to have a firm and chewy consistency.

The fundamental kosher rule is a strict separation between milk and meat. Thus in a meal that excludes meat, rather than mayonnaise the bread would be densely spread with unsalted butter or an onion-flavored white cheese. For meals with meat, they use schmaltz, chicken fat cooked with lots of onions which are then removed and eaten separately. And while it is true that Wasp cuisine would have been better for Woody’s health, it would never make him happy. After the pogrom, urbanization, emigration and the deportations of the Second World War, there is not much left of the Old World cuisine from the Ashkenazi exodus and the flourishing 19th century Eastern European society. Some remnants can be found in Rue des Rosiers in Paris or in London’s East End or Golder’s Green, more than in Israel itself where from the beginning the people decided not to base their new society in the Promise Lands on Yiddishkeit, in regard to both language and cuisine. Since the beginning of the 20th century, on the other hand, the hub of Yiddish civilization has been New York, where a million Jews live and where all aspects of this transplanted culture survive and once flourished with Jewish theatres and even a movie industry. And still today you can find there Italian, Mexican, Chinese and Indian restaurants that are rigorously kosher. There were also a number of rival newspapers in Yiddish with writers the caliber of Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, the greatest exponent of Yiddish literature.

New York is a city where regional cuisine means Jewish food, which is much different than what you find in Rome. New York Jewish cuisine, in fact, is based on that of central Europe, where chickens were raise for their meat, eggs and fat and cows for meat, milk, butter and cheese. Where the grains were those of colder climates and meat and fish were preserved in brine or smoked and ‘poor’ greens and tubers were eaten.

It is a cuisine that exalts the limited room allowed by kosher law: no pork, no fish that does not have a spine or scales and meat and milk are never mixed. These laws date back to Biblical times and have a rational explanation: pigs were subject to parasites and shellfish spoiled easily in the heat of the Middle East.  There is also a symbolic explanation: “we” are a small people surrounded by enemies and we need to maintain our own traditions and habits that distinguish us from “them”. Raw and cooked, honey and ash, milk and meat: the ancestry of Lévi-Strauss was not by chance.

*Art History Professor at Princeton University.