by Gil Marks
There are numerous variations of honey cake recipes, the loaves ranging from dense, dark brown, and intense with honey and spice to light and airy with only a subtle hint of honey and a note of spice. The flavor of a cake varies depending on the type of honey—the stronger the honey (such as buckwheat), the more intense the cake. A little coffee or tea draws out a pleasant bitter note in the cake. Traditional lekach is always pareve and never frosted.
The first recipe for "Lekach" in English was in The International Jewish Cook Book by Florence Kreisler Greenbaum (New York, 1918). The author noted, "This recipe is one that is used in Palestine."
Beginning in the seventeenth century, the use of honey in Europe markedly declined, and, correspondingly, honey cakes lost favor, surpassed by sponge and butter cakes. Still, for more than a thousand years, lekach has remained a common sight at various Ashkenazic rituals, such as kiddushes, brit milahs, bar mitzvahs, and weddings. Generations of holiday meals have ended with lekach. It is enjoyed on the Sabbath, on Purim, on Hanukkah, and at the meal following Yom Kippur, and flourless versions are even served for Passover. In Germany, honey cakes shaped like a ladder were prepared for Shavuot (honey was compared to the Torah, which was given to the Jewish people on that day and a ladder, from Jacob's dream, a symbol of reaching heaven), although today the custom is to prepare dairy foods. On the eve of Yom Kippur, many Chasidim have a custom that each person should specifically ask for a piece of lekach from someone else—accordingly, the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Brooklyn once gave out pieces of honey cake to around ten thousand people. Most notably, honey cake serves as a traditional Ashkenazic Rosh Hashanah treat, allowing people to start the new year off on a sweet note.
(See also Honey and Lebkuchen)
Ashkenazic Honey Cake (Lekach)
makes one 10-inch tube cake, one 13-by-9-inch cake, or two large loaves
[PAREVE]
3 cups (15 ounces) all-purpose flour, or 1½ cups white flour and 1½ cups rye flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon or 1 teaspoon ground ginger, or 1 teaspoon cinnamon and ½ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon ground cardamom, nutmeg, or allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup (11.75 ounces) honey
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
1 cup (8.5 ounces) dark brown sugar, packed
1 cup strong liquid coffee (from about 1 tablespoon instant coffee) or tea (from 2 tea bags)
1 to 1½ cups raisins, diced candied citron, mixed candied fruit, or chopped toasted walnuts or pecans; or ½ cup raisins, ½ cup chopped dried apricots, and ½ cup chopped nuts (optional)
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease one 10-inch Bundt or tube pan, one 13-by-9-inch baking pan, or two 9-inch loaf pans, line the bottom and sides with parchment paper, and regrease.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, oil, honey, and sugars. Add the coffee. Stir in the flour mixture until smooth. If using, add the fruit.
3. Pour into the prepared pan and place on a baking sheet. Bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly touched, about 1 hour for a Bundt or tube pan, 40 to 45 minutes for a 13-by-9-inch pan, or 45 to 55 minutes for loaf pans. Do not overbake or the outside will burn and the interior will dry out. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then transfer the cake(s) to a wire rack and let cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and let stand for at least 24 hours. The flavor improves as the cake matures for a day or two.
Lekvar
Lekvar is a fruit butter, particularly those made from prunes, but also commonly encompassing those based on apricots, apples and peaches.
Origin: Slovakia
Other names: Czech: povidla; Germany/Austria: powidl; Hungary: lekveir.
Unlike jams and jellies, fruit butters do not obtain their sweetness from added sugar, which for most of history was rare and expensive in Europe. Sugar also detracts from the natural flavor of the fruit. Rather, the sweetness in lekvar comes from the ripe fruit itself and is produced by the concentration of the natural sugar during the long hours of cooking.
Frenchmen from the Fifth Crusade (1217—1221) returned from the Middle East with the European plum tree, which requires a long period of winter chilling to bear fruit, and it gradually spread across central Europe. Plums grow prolifically in this region, coming into season in late August and September, around Rosh Hashanah. During other parts of the year, reductions from dried plums could, as needed, be prepared. These reductions could be cooked more quickly than fresh plums and had a more intense flavor.
In much of the continent, the preferred plum variety to dry was the Italian (Lombard) plum, which produced a tart-sweet dried plum with a winy flavor.
For centuries, the pitted fruit was boiled outdoors in large kettles for three to four hours until it was quite thick, with people taking turns constantly stirring with large wooden utensils to prevent scorching. The fruit reduction was then stored in crocks to last at least through the winter. Today, a slightly sweeter fruit butter is preferred, in which sugar is added not only as a sweetener, but also as a preservative and thickener.
In northern Europe, the prevalent term for fruit reductions was the Czech povidla (from povidat, "to tell stories"), the same term used in Poland, Ukraine, and Moldavia. In Germany and Austria, plum reductions became known as powidl, as well as pflaumenmus and zwetschgenkonfitüre. Plum butter in Yiddish was generally povidl. Nobel Prize—winning writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon, in his 1939 book A Guest for the Night, depicting Jewish life in Galicia (southern Poland) before World War II, wrote, "The smell of warm povidl, which had been put away in the oven, sweetened the air of the house. For many years I had not felt its taste or come across its smell—that smell of ripe plums in the oven, which brings back the memory of days gone by, when Mother, may she rest in peace, would spread the sweet povidl on my bread."
Farther south, a different terminology emerged from one of the hallmarks of medieval European medicine, the latwerge; known in English as an electuary or a lincture, this paste was made by mixing medicinal powders with honey, sugar syrup, or fruit paste. Among the Czechs, medicinal pastes became known as lektvar, and even farther south, around the seventeenth century, the Slovaks transformed this term to lekvar and used it to refer to various fruit butters. Hungarians followed suit, calling fruit reductions lekvár.
In the areas where it became known as lekvar, dried plum paste was for centuries the jam of the masses, who spread it on peasant bread or used it in various treats. Because it is so thick, lekvar's quintessential role is as a filling for central and eastern European pastries (such as Danish, fluden, hamantaschen, kipfel, kolache, and piroshki) and crepes (the Slovac and Czech palacinka), kugels, doughnuts, and dumplings.
After commercial canning became practical in the 1860s, central Europeans began to produce canned fruit butters. In the 1920s, Sokol & Company of Chicago, whose founder was from a Bohemian background, introduced under the Solo brand a line of central European—style fillings, including prune, although at the time the prune filling was not designated as lekvar. From 1926 until it closed near the turn of the twenty-first century, H. Roth & Sons, also later known as Lekvar-by-the-Barrel, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan sold bulk prune and apricot butters in addition to other Hungarian favorites. The availability of commercial fruit butters led to a further emphasis on dried rather than fresh plums in baking, as dried fruit was more accessible and less seasonal. Commercial lekvars also contained added sugar to facilitate the canning process. Consequently, some bakers continued to make their own fruit butters, as commercial lekvar was not as flavorful as homemade.
When Time magazine first mentioned lekvar in 1940, it was described as "gluey layers of
candied noodles," and not fruit butter. In both Yiddish and En- glish, the term lekvar to denote fruit butter was widely adopted relatively late; in the 1950s, when Hungarian and Slovak immigrants in America brought the term into general usage. Hungarians have long ranked among the best home bakers in Europe and many of their pastries incorporate lekvar. After World War II, various Hungarian baked goods and techniques were adopted by the wider Ashkenazic community, as well as the term lekvar. It soon became the common Yiddish name for fruit butters. Jews, in turn, helped to popularize the use of lekvar, the word and the food, in America.
(See also Plum)
Lemon, Preserved
Preserved lemon is actually a pickled lemon.
Origin: Maghreb
Other names: Arabic: hamid m'syiar, hamid muraqqad; French: citron confit; Hebrew: limonim hamoutzi.
Preserved lemons are a staple of Moroccan cuisine, as well as important in Algeria and Tunisia, providing an exotic touch to any dish. Moroccans traditionally prepared a year's supply of preserved lemons every spring, when the fruit was juiciest, preferring boussera (bergamot), a tart variety that tends to have more juice, or the very small, thin-skinned doqq variety. However, any lemon works well, including Meyer lemons (a cross between a lemon and a mandarin). The lemons are cut and salted, then left to pickle in additional lemon juice, producing a distinctive pungent flavor and silken texture. Moroccan Jews sometimes pickle the lemons in oil instead of lemon juice, which causes the lemons to develop a somewhat different flavor. Another Jewish touch is to add cinnamon sticks to lemons to be used with sweet dishes, and peppercorns and bay leaves to those meant for savory dishes.
Preserved lemons are frequently added to tagines, chicken and fish stews, and vegetable salads. They marry well with olives, cilantro, and ginger. Cooks primarily use the rind, which softens in texture and mellows in flavor as it pickles. Some cooks also include the pulp, while others discard it. The thick brine is used as the souring agent in various dishes.
Moroccan Preserved Lemons (Hamid M'syiar)
6 lemons
[PAREVE]
6 medium unblemished lemons, preferably organic
About 7 tablespoons kosher salt
About 1 cup fresh lemon juice or vegetable oil
1. Cover the lemons with warm water and let soak, changing the water every day, for 3 days. Drain and pat dry.
2. Starting from the top of the lemons, cut lengthwise to within ½ inch of the bottom, then turn halfway and cut the same way into quarters—do not cut apart, but leave the lemons attached at the base. Stuff the gashes with the salt, about 1 tablespoon per lemon, and reshape the fruit.
3. Sprinkle the remaining 1 tablespoon salt over the bottom of a sterilized 1-quart jar. Pack in the lemons, squishing them down. Add enough lemon juice to cover. Seal the jar and let stand in a cool, dark place, shaking the jar each day, until soft, about 4 weeks.
4. Refrigerate after opening. Store the lemons in the pickling liquid. Using tongs, and not your fingers, remove the lemons. Preserved lemons will keep in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.
Lentil
The lentil, the seed of a small annual shrub, was probably the first domesticated legume; its cultivation stretches well back before recorded history. Lentils, together with barley, einkorn, emmer, and millet, constituted the bulk of early agriculture and the human diet.
The low bushy lentil plant bears pods containing two thin biconvex seeds. Immature pods are occasionally eaten as a vegetable, but most are dried and threshed. All lentils of various colors—brown, dark green, orange, pinkish, and red—are members of the same species. The brown variety, which actually ranges in color from olive green to light brown, is the most prevalent in the West. Brown lentils, which come unhulled, have a rather bland flavor and hold their shape well in cooking, making them best for salads and stews. Green lentils, also unhulled, are firmer and take a little longer to cook than brown. Several varieties of very small, dark green lentils, called French lentils or verte du Puy, are renowned for their firm texture and are considered a delicacy. Red-brown lentils are unhulled red lentils; they have an earthier flavor than the hulled version and keep their shape better during cooking. Red lentils—also called orange lentils, Egyptian lentils, Persian lentils, and, in India, massor dal/masur dal—are hulled, revealing their bright reddish orange interiors. Red lentils—their bright color fades as they cook—become tender more quickly than green varieties. Because they break down while cooking, red lentils are commonly used in pureed dishes or where a smooth texture is desired.
Lentils have been a part of Jewish cookery from the onset, including the most famous lentil dish of all time, Jacob's red pottage, for which his twin, Esau, sold his birthright. Lentils were also used to make ashishim, pressed cakes made from ground roasted lentils and honey and fried in oil, such as those King David gave to all the people upon bringing the ark to Jerusalem. Because lentils have a spherical shape with "no mouth" (no opening), they are symbolic of mourners who are required to be silent. Lentils are traditionally served, along with hard-boiled eggs, at a Seudat Havra'ah (meal of consolation) following a burial and before fasts. At the same time, lentils are a symbol of fertility and so are sometimes served on joyous occasions as well.
The Romans, however, viewed lentils with disdain and even as harmful, a sentiment adopted by many Jews of the empire. For Ashkenazim, lentils had the standing of poor person's food and were considered something to be avoided except at times of famine. This disparagement of lentils may have, by mistake, led to the Ashkenazic prohibition against consuming kitniyot (legumes) on Passover. Arabs, on the other hand, viewed lentils as an energizer and mood brightener, and the legume flourished in Muslim cultures. Accordingly, Mizrachim typically consume lentils on a regular basis, although generally not for the Sabbath and festivals.
By themselves, lentils are rather bland with an earthy flavor, so they are good companions for garlic, tomato, and many assertive herbs. Lentil soup became a common breakfast in parts of the Middle East. Lentils are frequently teamed with grains for complementary nutrition in dishes such as the widespread Middle Eastern rice and lentil mujaddara. Sephardim generally use red lentils for soups and brown lentils for most other recipes, including dishes in which lentils are combined with rice, bulgur, or noodles. Syrians use red lentils as a vegetarian substitute in dishes such as lahmajin (meat pizzas) and kibbeh neyeh (raw ground meat). For the Bene Israel of India, hulled red lentils, along with rice, form the basis of most meals
(See also Dal, Mujaddara, and Wot)
Libatoportyu Pastetom
Libatoportyu pastetom is a Transylvanian spread, a substitute for chopped liver, made from poultry cracklings. Pástétom is Hungarian for "pâté," while liba means "goose" and töpörtyû denotes "cracklings," which are called gribenes in Yiddish. This was a favorite Sabbath lunch dish in the Transylvanian town of Szatmar, now located in eastern Hungary.
Liver
"I am sorry, but we are all out of pickled fish. You can have some chopped liver instead, and you can have some fine cabbage soup after that."
(From the November 28, 1914, edition of the Fort Wayne [Indiana] Sentinel, recording one of the first U.S. mentions of chopped liver.)
Food was, until relatively recently, a precious and frequently scarce resource and, therefore, no part of an animal was wasted, including the sometimes less-than-desirable offal. Liver was generally viewed unfavorably by Sephardim and Mizrachim, so it re- ceived little attention in their recipes and was rarely, if ever, served on the Sabbath or festivals.
The lack of interest by in liver many Jews was not only attributable to its mineral flavor, which is an acquired taste, but also partially due to its unique status in the Jewish dietary laws. Liver, the largest internal organ (its Hebrew name kaved derives from the root "heavy"), fulfills numerous functions in metabolism and the elimination of toxins, including cleansing the blood. Due to the large quantity of blood saturating this complex organ, it cannot be kashered in the sa
me manner as other parts of the animal, by merely soaking and salting, but instead must be broiled under or grilled over a flame. Not only is kosher liver a bit of a bother to prepare, but the organ's distinctive flavor becomes more pronounced the longer it is cooked.
While much of the world tended to disparage liver, among medieval Ashkenazim goose liver emerged as a much-beloved delicacy. The liver's rise to prominence in northern France and Alsace was not initially caused by people's preference for the organ or even for the bird's flesh, but rather by their desire to render the goose's indispensable fat, as goose schmaltz was the predominant cooking medium for Jews in the region.
The liver and skin are the principal repositories of the fat of geese and ducks. For about a month before migrating, these birds gorge on excess food in preparation, eating as much as possible. As explained in the book Foie Gras: A Passion by Michael Ginor (Wiley, 1999), force-feeding waterfowl is an ancient practice. Egyptians, who were the first known to domesticate waterfowl, were also, in at least 2500 BCE, the first to force-feed them—with roasted barley and other grains soaked in water—to produce fatter birds, a process probably originating as a means of rendering them too heavy to fly. Subsequently, the techniques were adopted by the Greeks and then the Romans, who were the first to specifically note the resultant fattened goose liver as a desired delicacy. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the practice of force-feeding disappeared from Europe along with many other gastronomic techniques, except among Italian Jews, who retained the venerable methods. Around the eleventh century, Italian Jews introduced this practice to their counterparts in Alsace. Even centuries later, in 1782, Pierre Jean Baptiste, known as Legrand d'Aussy, in a lengthy study of French cuisine, wrote, "The Jews of Metz and Strasbourg possess the same secrets [of the ancient Romans], though their precise methods we do not know. And the secret is one of the branches of commerce that made them rich. As is well known, Strasbourg makes these livers into pâtés whose reputation is renowned."
