Encyclopedia of Jewish Food

by Gil Marks

  Shortly after Columbus' first voyage, Spanish explorers introduced corn to the Old World and Portuguese ships began shipping it from the Americas. Corn initially achieved popularity in North Africa. It was recorded in Egypt by at least 1530. In 1650, the Ottoman Turks, who preferred wheat and contemptuously rejected eating the new grain, introduced the less expensive corn to territories in the Balkans as well as to Italy. Always on the lookout for a good deal, Venetian and Dutch merchants grasped the commercial potential of this American import and began peddling it, mainly in cornmeal form, throughout Europe.

  As usual with a new item, Jews, who were generally excluded from trade guilds and owning land, frequently served as the middlemen. Corn had a short growing season and a high yield, and it did not need to be threshed and winnowed. This made it much less expensive and problematic to grow than wheat or even barley. Corn was also tastier and more versatile than barley. In addition, corn matches well with wheat in crop rotation. Although corn did not fare very well in the cooler climes of northern Europe, the milder conditions in the south proved ideal. In particular, Europe had entered a cold period from the middle of the sixteenth century until the eighteenth century, during which corn cultivation suffered.

  However, there emerged an even more serious problem than weather conditions. The Old World areas that shifted to cornmeal were unaware of the Native American practices of treating the grain with wood ash or of eating it with beans. People soon found themselves plagued with pellagra (skin lesions, inflammation, and mental disorders) and other diseases caused by vitamin deficiency. As a result, most populations quickly switched back to Old World grains and corn was mainly grown as animal fodder.

  On the other hand, in some areas, most notably the part of the Roman Empire accustomed to subsisting on pulmentum (grain porridges) and also to consuming legumes and dairy products that supplemented the nutrition in corn—northern Italy, Bulgaria, southern Ukraine, southern Hungary, western Georgia, and especially Romania—unprocessed cornmeal emerged as the most important component of the diet, much as potatoes, another American import, did in Poland and Ireland. Today, corn is the most planted field crop globally.

  Only a very small percent of corn is consumed fresh; most of it is used for animal feed and processed into oil, syrup, starch, cold cereals, cornmeal, and various other edible and inedible items. Cornmeal can be adapted in numerous ways, including porridges, gnocchi (Italian dumplings), breads, soufflés, and desserts. Romanians even make a spirit from it.

  The primary difference between yellow and white cornmeal is the color—the yellow variety contains a larger amount of beta-carotene. Otherwise, there is no perceptible difference in taste or texture between dishes made from either color meal.

  (See also Malai and Mamaliga)

  Corned Beef

  Two weeks after the historic 2008 election, President- elect Barack Obama, accompanied by a throng of Secret Service agents, visited a local Chicago deli and purchased three corned beef sandwiches to go, explaining, "I have to get corned beef for Rahm [Emanuel, his new chief of staff]." The American public needed no explanation of corned beef on rye, understanding full well this iconic Jewish food. Jewish corned beef, called salt beef in England and pickelfleisch in Yiddish, is beef brisket that is cured with a brine of salt, sugar, and spices, and then cooked.

  Although early humans did not understand the chemistry involved in salting and curing meat, they recognized the empirical effects, thereby stretching a limited and expensive resource. The typical time to slaughter cattle was in the late fall, to avoid the necessity of feeding any unwanted animals for the winter. At this time, much of the meat was dry-salted—coated with coarse grains of salt and air dried—to preserve it at least until spring. Cool weather also helped prevent the meat from spoiling.

  During the medieval period, the English began referring to the dry-salted type of preserved meat as cured beef, salt beef, and corned beef, the latter term first appearing in 1621 in the medical text Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton. The name has nothing to do with what Americans call corn (maize in Britain). In En- gland, corn is a term used for any small, hard particle, such as a grain of coarse salt. The medieval English concept of corned beef, referring to dry-salted meat, is rather different from the contemporary item in Jewish delis bearing that name. The English dry-cured meat was so excessively salty and hard, akin to salt cod (bacalao), it had to be soaked in water and boiled for hours in order to be palatable.

  Beginning in the sixteenth century, another salt, potassium nitrate (saltpeter) was commonly added by Europeans to maintain the meat's color and improve the flavor, texture, and shelf life. In the eighteenth century, as the availability of sugar rose and its price dramatically fell, sugar, also a preservative, was frequently mixed with the two salts. The advent of saltpeter eventually led to a different wet method for curing meat. It was still called cured or corned beef, but it was preserved in a concentrated salt solution (pickle)—the source of the German and Yiddish term pickelfleisch. This method was most popular in cooler climates, notably Alsace, Holland, Germany, and Austria. Beef tongue was also commonly pickled as was fish, such as herring. Pickled meat did not become as salty and hard as dry-cured meat and was also much cheaper than fresh. It therefore became the most common type of meat consumed in parts of eighteenth-century Europe and America.

  In America, pickled beef first appeared in print in the recipe "A Good Pickle for Beef and Pork, Called the 'Knickerbocker Pickle' " in the anonymous twelve-page pamphlet The Family Receipt Book, Containing Thirty Valuable and Simple Receipts by "A Long—Island Farmer" (1825). Earlier American cookbooks only recorded the dry-cured method for meat.

  Mrs. E. A. Howland, in The New England Economical Housekeeper (1844), provided the two mid- nineteenth-century American methods of curing meat. The dry-curing entailed sprinkling one hundred pounds of beef with "four pounds brown sugar, four ounces saltpetre, and four quarts fine Liverpool salt," with no added liquid, only "the juice of the meat." The other method was to sprinkle the meat lightly with salt and place it in barrels, then "cover the meat with a pickle made by boiling together, in four gallons of water, eight pounds of salt, three pounds of brown sugar, three ounces saltpetre, one ounce saleratus [sodium bicarbonate], for one hundred pounds of meat... beef packed in this manner will keep a year." The classic New England boiled dinner was originally made from this type of salted beef.

  Meanwhile, the term corned beef took on a different meaning in the mid-nineteenth century after the German organic chemist Justus von Liebig invented meat extract in an attempt to develop an inexpensive meat substitute. In 1866, Liebig opened a factory to manufacture the meat extract in Uruguay, in the heart of gaucho country, to make use of the meat from animals primarily slaughtered for their hides. Seven years later, as the company was slaughtering about one hundred fifty thousand head of cattle a year, he mixed the boiled meat left over from the meat extract process with sodium nitrite, canned it, and sold it as corned beef, which the English also referred to as bully beef (from the French bouilli "boiled"). William Vestey, son of a Liverpool meatpacking family, began to precook and can vast amounts of trimmings from the Chicago stockyards, also calling it corned beef and popularizing the term in America. In 1920, the Vesteys bought Liebig's plant and merged the operations.

  In the mid-nineteenth century, artificial refrigeration allowed the substitution of a much weaker saltwater brine, which also contained less sugar, that could be used for curing meat any time of the year and produced milder and more tender meat.The first known to use this process were German who called it pickelfleisch. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, central European immigrants in America, including Germen Jews, popularized pickelfleisch made from brisket. It was typically flavored with peppercorns and bay leaves, and was cured using the lighter brine and the refrigeration method available in America. Jews in lower Manhattan, who had long enjoyed the economical brisket as traditional fare, found pickled beef and tongue intriguing, as well
as less expensive than fresh cuts, and began preparing it for special occasions, usually with potatoes and other vegetables. This is where Irish neighbors picked up the idea for their corned beef and cabbage, which became a substitute for Irish bacon—back home in Ireland, they had no history of pickled beef.

  Home kitchens and small stores, some called delicatessens, began selling food catering to Jewish immigrants, many of them males who were either single or attempting to save up enough money to bring over their families from Europe. These eateries commonly served the less expensive pickled and cured meats, all of it beef and much of it kosher, between slices of rye bread—the simple dish was a filling meal. Sandwiches were also more portable than plain meat and could be taken home or to work. The patrons took a liking to these deli sandwiches, when done well. Pickled beef soon became known by the same name as the popular canned meat, corned beef. In England, American-style pickled corned beef, called salt beef in London, is still relatively rare; it is available primarily in a few Jewish-style delis.

  In delis, the meat is still always served on rye bread and it is offered cold as well as hot (steamed); the hot corned beef sandwich was also born in New York City. The rainbow specter that sometimes appears on corned beef and other slices of deli meat is merely an optical illusion created by the thin slicing process; the bundles of myofibrils are cut at an angle that refracts a spectrum of light. In some establishments, patrons are asked if they want the meat "lean" or "juicy" (with fat). Mustard or occasionally horseradish is the proper condiment and sour dill pickles and "half sours" the ubiquitous accompaniments.

  It was in Manhattan's "kosher style" delis in the 1930s and 40s, a time when there were more than five thousand delis in the New York metropolitan area, that overstuffed sandwiches, filled with inches of sliced meat and available in a multitude of combinations, emerged. The concept spread to other cities with sizable Jewish populations. A strip of East Lombard Street in downtown Baltimore, once the center of the city's Jewish life and dotted with delis, was nicknamed "Corned Beef Row." In the 1920s, Toronto became a Canadian center of Jewish delicatessens.

  In 1893, two Jewish immigrants, Emil Reichel of Austria and Sam Ladany of Hungary, opened a small store on the West Side of Chicago, the Vienna Sausage Company, which was subsequently responsible for turning Chicago into a hot dog town. The partners, whose business grew into the multi-million-dollar Vienna Beef Company, also introduced other central European meats, including a sideline of corned beef, which they marketed as pickelfleisch. Although Jewish-style, these products were not kosher, but targeted to the general market. Within a few years, Vienna Sausage began selling items to stores and restaurants in the area and, by the 1940s, many delicatessens in the Midwest were featuring Vienna's products.

  By the 1960s, Jewish corned beef had spread to the American mainstream. In a Gemini 3 flight in 1965, astronaut John Young as a practical joke smuggled onboard a corned beef sandwich from a Jewish deli near Cape Canaveral to give to Virgil (Gus) Grissom who did not want to eat the NASA food during the nearly five-hour flight. Because crumbs from the sandwich posed a potential safety hazard, this became, so far, the one and only corned beef sandwich in space.

  (See also Brisket, Choucroute Garnie, and Delicatessen)

  Couscous

  Couscous is rolled pasta granules made from crushed and ground semolina, bound with water. In addition, the term means the various stews (marga) that are served with or on top of the couscous.

  Origin: Maghreb

  Other names: Arabic: kouskous, mugrabieh; Berber: k'seksu; Lebanon: maftoul; Turkish: kuskus.

  An ancient African cooking technique consisted of steaming foods in woven baskets. Among the aftereffects of the Arab conquest of northwestern Africa at the end of the seventh century was the widespread cultivation of durum wheat in the Maghreb. By the eleventh century, the Berbers, pre-Arab northwest African tribes, utilized the venerable African steaming practice to develop a process of steaming semolina granules made from the durum endosperm called couscous. The name possibly came from the Arabic kaskasa (to pound/make small). Others contend the word is an onomatopoeia derived from the sound of the semolina granules being stirred to form the couscous.

  The first recorded recipe and one of the earliest references to couscous was the term kuskusu, the Arabic cognate of the Berber seksu, in an anonymous Moorish Andalusian thirteenth-century cookbook, where a dish attributed to Marrakesh called "Kuskusu Titian" (Soldiers' Couscous) was described as "famous all over the world." Also in the thirteenth century, references to couscous begin appearing in Tunisia. It was in the Maghreb that couscous was created and found its greatest popularity. Couscous-like dishes in other parts of the Arab world are commonly called maghribiyya (from the Maghreb). Couscous—simply topped with sour milk and butter or with an elaborate stew—has long served as daily fare throughout the Maghreb.

  In some areas, couscous was made from other hard grain pellets, such as millet, sorghum, and barley, but versatile semolina remains the standard. Historically, couscous in the Maghreb was made at home by hand. Husbands would purchase a large sack of durum wheat berries, usually in August when there was plenty of sun for drying. Then the women, usually in a group of family and friends, gathered to form the pellets, a time-consuming process requiring much skill. Wealthier families would hire a Berber woman to prepare their supply.

  Unlike pasta, couscous is not flour kneaded into a dough, but instead the smeed (finely crushed semolina) is placed in a large shallow earthenware or wooden bowl—called a qasa in Morocco and an iyan in Algeria—gradually sprinkled with salty water and one part semolina flour, and stirred in a circular motion or rubbed with the right hand; the starch accumulates around the semolina granules to form progressively larger bits. The couscous must be sifted through several progressively smaller sieves to achieve a uniform grain; fine pellets, in some areas reserved for sweetened couscous, are called seffa in Morocco and masfuf/masfouf in Tunisia, and very large ones are called berkukes or mhammsa.

  The couscous is then steamed, spread out on a mat or cloth to dry in the sun for several days, and placed in airtight containers for storage. Moroccans and Tunisians prefer medium-sized grains, while Algerians generally opt for finer granules. Large-grain granules, which have to be steamed five times or cooked in a liquid, are popular in southern Morocco.

  In the Maghreb, both the grains and the stew are traditionally made in a couscousière, a two-compartment barrel-shaped vessel with a stewing pot on the bottom—called a qidra in Morocco and Algeria, an ikineksu by Berbers, and a makful in Tunisia—and an uncovered perforated steamer (kiskis) on top. As the couscous granules cook and soften, they absorb the flavors of the stew. A flour and water paste or dough rope is commonly wrapped around the juncture of the top and bottom parts of the couscousière to prevent the steam from escaping. Berbers traditionally used couscousières of unglazed earthenware, while many Arabs and Jews preferred ones consisting of copper lined with tin.

  After steaming, the granules are customarily fluffed up and heaped onto a deep-sided serving platter. Moroccans typically arrange the meat and/or vegetables on top of the couscous and pour the broth over the top to moisten the grains. Algerians generally present the couscous, meat and vegetables, and broth in separate serving dishes. In the Maghreb, for a feast, couscous with stew is rarely served as a main course, but in accord with the Middle Eastern style of hospitality, hosts offer the couscous as a finale to a number of courses to produce shaban (complete satisfaction).

  Couscous can be fiery or sweet; it can contain an assortment of meats, poultry, or fish or be vegetarian. Tunisians prefer more robust stews with plenty of fire, while Moroccans use a subtle combination of spices. Algerians typically add tomatoes. Savory stews are generally accompanied by a fiery chili paste called harissa. Although Westerners find it more comfortable to eat couscous with a spoon, the more traditional and sensual method is to use your right hand to scoop up some of the granules and stew, form into a small ball, an
d pop it into your mouth.

  Jews, who have been a major presence in the Maghreb since at least Roman times, have been making couscous for nearly a thousand years. Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian Jews serve couscous accompanied with several salads every Friday night, on the festivals, and at special occasions, including a brit, bar mitzvah, and wedding. Most cooks make an extra-large quantity on Friday night so that they can serve the leftover grains with the following day's hamin/adafina (Sabbath stew). The Moroccan couscous stew for Rosh Hashanah, called couscous aux sept legumes, customarily contains seven symbolic vegetables; seven is considered a fortuitous number as Rosh Hashanah falls on the first day of the seventh month and the world was created in seven days. The dessert couscous for Rosh Hashanah is sprinkled with pomegranate seeds or small grapes. On Sukkot, a large assortment of vegetables, especially sweet potatoes and carrots, are added to the stew as a sign of the harvest.

  When seffa (fine couscous) is mixed with chopped dried fruits and nuts, and typically moistened with almond milk, it is known as couscous hillo (sweet). For grand public affairs, such as weddings and bar mitzvahs, sweetened seffa is mounded into a large pyramid, sprinkled with ground cinnamon, and garnished with datils rellenos (stuffed dates); the sweetness of the dish denotes happiness. Moroccans prefer their desserts rich and sugary, and their seffa hillo is generally sweeter than Tunisian versions.

  Although some Mahgrebi cooks still insist on making their own couscous from scratch, considering it a disgrace to buy it in a store, convenient machine-made couscous grains are found at Middle Eastern markets. Most of the couscous available in the West consists of finer grains processed through steaming under tremendous pressure, thereby transforming it into "instant" couscous; this product requires no additional steaming or lengthy cooking, just a soak in hot water.

  Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the government imposed a period of national belt-tightening and rationing, known as the tzena (austerity). Because rice was still prohibitively expensive in the early 1950s, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion asked the Osem company to devise a carbohydrate food that would be filling and inexpensive. The company responded with petitim (from the Hebrew root petat, "to break into pieces/to crumble"). In America, it became known as Israeli couscous. Petitim are made from a wheat paste extruded into small balls about ten times larger than Maghrebi couscous, then toasted. Israeli couscous must be cooked like pasta in plenty of boiling water. It has a chewier texture and a slightly nutty flavor, which is made more pronounced if it is first browned in hot fat. Israeli couscous cannot be substituted in recipes for standard couscous.