Sorting through old files recently, I dug up a tattered collection of recipes created by my Jewish kindergarten class back in the 1980s.
We fledgling chefs didn't exactly have the culinary aptitude of Ina Garten or
The Bear's
Chef Carmen. My classmate Joey's popcorn called for extra "drops of apple juice." And Bessie's spaghetti and meatballs specified exactly "90 noodles."
And my recipe for "corned beef sandwich" took the cake It read: "She [Mom] buys corned beef at the store. Then she takes it off the wax paper. Then she puts it on a plate. She gives us bread too."
There's something so Jewish about that amateur cookbook. The compilation sparked for us children, barely out of the womb, our introduction to thinking and talking about food--and does it get more Jewish than that?
Whether it's roast chicken or Moroccan fish on Shabbat, blintzes and bagels for Yom Kippur break-fast, or, heck, Chinese food on Christmas, food is central to Jewish culture.
As the old joke goes, while our people are currently eating, we're also planning our next meal.
Our class cookbook is a Jewish artifact in another way, too. The recipes were passed down to us from our families--our parents and grandparents and those that came before them.
My great-grandmother taught my grandma to make the dishes back in a tiny
shtetl
in Belarus, and my grandma, in turn, recorded the recipes either in her mind or on paper, and taught them to my mother in America. My mom, then, passed some of those same recipes down to my sister and me, employing us as her tiny sous chefs growing up.
We little ones always got the fun jobs, cracking the eggs, leaning down toward the vanilla to inhale its fragrance, and mixing the ingredients with a wooden spoon in a bowl as big as our heads.
Those moments in my childhood kitchen serve up some of my most delicious memories. The only experience that rivals them are the new memories I'm creating these days with my own little sous chefs-my 5- and 3-year-old daughters-in our kitchen, making challah,
charoset
, and my favorite--a recipe for sweet noodle
kugel
that originated in that
shtetl
in Belarus.
Those family recipes--in our home and millions of other Jewish homes around the world--have seen it all. They've traveled a long way in miles--by train, boat, and plane--and decades, often one of the few remnants to survive pogroms and war.
The recipes serve as a constant in our volatile history--a witness at our Shabbat and holiday tables to our conversations, songs, tears, and laughter, an observer to our Jewish story.
For ease, I recently transferred some of those recipes from scraps of paper to my phone. What a paradox, to read old family recipes on my 21st century smartphone. We're honoring the legacy and wisdom of our loved ones who came before us-transporting beautiful pieces of our Jewish families out of the past and into present day.
Through those recipes, and the stories that accompany them, I'm acquainting my children with my great-grandparents and grandparents--their namesakes--all who passed away before my little ones entered the world.
It's the power of Jewish continuity--in culinary form. One day, I hope my daughters will share those same family dishes and stories with my grandchildren. From one generation to another--
l'dor v'dor
--they link our family tree, and rolling pin, from past to present to future.
