by Gil Marks
Meanwhile, French fries also spread across the English Channel to Britain, where they became known as chips, and, in the early nineteenth century, were being sold from small shops. A Jewish fishmonger, Joseph Malin, is credited with combining the Jewish-style fried fish from his store on Old Ford Road in London's East End with the fried potatoes of a neighboring Irish shop, creating the classic British combination of fish and chips. This innovation occurred around 1865 and by the end of that decade, fish-and-chip shops had become a British institution, providing a fast, inexpensive, and filling meal for the working class.
Cod is the most common variety used in peshkado frito, but other favored fish are red snapper, sea bass, and halibut. There are two ways of preparing and attaching the coating: dipping the fillets into beaten eggs, then into flour or bread crumbs; or combining the eggs and flour (or bread crumbs) to make a batter, then dipping the fish into the batter. In either case, the coating prevents the fish from sticking to the pan, protects the fish from the heat, holds the tender flesh together, and gives the fried fish a darker color. Frying crisps the flour, seals in the juices, and cooks the fillets quickly. The result is a firm, moist, flavorful fish.
Jewish-styled fried fish, which was typically fried in oil, was historically different from that of non-Jews, who used lard or butter. When they lived in Iberia, Sephardim used olive oil, but once they migrated to the eastern Mediterranean, where the price was typically higher, they frequently substituted sesame or sunflower oil. When fried fish is done right, the flavor and sweetness of the fish are accentuated, and the fish is not greasy or heavy. Some cooks deep-fry the fish, thereby avoiding the delicate task of turning the fillet, while others fry the fish on one side at a time in a smaller amount of oil. Peshkado frito is served simply with lemon wedges or with one of two sauces: agristada (egg-lemon sauce) or ajada (garlic mayonnaise).
Peshkado frito became a part of almost every Friday dinner, and the leftovers were enjoyed cold the following day at shalosh seudot (the afternoon meal) and even for several days thereafter. As a way of keeping the fish safe for a day or more—a requirement before the advent of artificial refrigeration—cooks would marinate the cold fried fish in a vinegar dressing.
Sephardic Pan-Fried Fish Fillets (Peshkado Frito)
4 to 6 servings
[PAREVE]
2¼ pounds firm-fleshed fish fillets, such as sea bass, cod, flounder, grouper, haddock, halibut, perch, salmon, snapper, sole, tilapia, or trout, cut into 4-inch pieces
About 1½ teaspoons kosher salt
Olive or vegetable oil for frying
About 2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour or matza meal
About ½ teaspoon table salt
1/8 to ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper or paprika
2 large eggs lightly beaten with 2 tablespoons water
1. Arrange the fish in a large, shallow dish, sprinkle with the kosher salt, and add enough water to just cover the fish. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Rinse, then pat dry.
2. In a large, heavy skillet, heat ¼ inch oil over medium heat to 370°F.
3. In a shallow dish, combine the flour, table salt, and pepper. Place the eggs in a second shallow dish. Just before frying, dip the fillets into the eggs, then into the flour to coat. Or stir together the flour, eggs, 1/3 cup water, and table salt and dip the fillets into this batter.
4. Working in batches, immediately place the fillets in a single layer in the skillet, leaving space between each fillet. Cook, without moving the fish, until golden brown on the bottom, about 2 minutes for ¼-inch-thick fillets, 3 minutes for ½-inch-thick, or 3 to 4 minutes for ¾- to 1-inch-thick.
5. Using a spatula, carefully turn the fillets. Reduce the heat to medium and fry until the crust is golden brown and the fish is firm to the touch and opaque, about 1 minute for ¼-inch-thick fillets, 2 minutes for ½-inch-thick, or 3 minutes for ¾- to 1-inch-thick. Drain on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Pfefferkuchen
Pfefferkuchen is a savory cookie.
Origin: Germany
Other names: feferkuchen.
This pastry dates back to around the sixteenth century. Although pfeffer means "pepper" in German, the word also connoted any new foreign spice, and various spices were used in these cookies. Like most central European baked goods before sugar became an accessible and inexpensive item, pfefferkuchen was not sweet. However, the addition of schmaltz, which Ashkenazim tended to use in baked goods instead of butter or lard, and a hint of spice elevated the long, thin, rich cookies into a dessert or an appetizer for special occasions. Pfefferkuchen became a Jewish surname; it was used by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Insulted and Injured (1861) for a German idealist.
Phyllo/Fila
There are two predominant ways of creating flaky layered pastries: Puff pastry and phyllo. Puff pastry is made by incorporating pockets of fat, which melt during baking, into a dough. Versatile puff pastry dough can yield crisp and brittle pastries like Napoleons, or soft and fluffy ones like Danishes. Its use is concentrated in an area roughly corresponding to the region of the former Holy Roman Empire.
In the kitchens of the royal palace in Istanbul, cooks perfected a method for stretching plain dough called yufka very thin and used it to make an array of baked goods. The Turks introduced their paper-thin dough throughout the Ottoman Empire, including the Balkans, where it became known as phyllo ("leaf" in Greek), and called fila in Arabic. The Turks also occupied Hungary and brought the concept of yufka into the heart of central Europe, where puff pastry overlaps with phyllo; there it became a dough called blätterteig, which was used for strudel. Whatever the name, phyllo is a basic unleavened dough—made from a mixture of flour, water, salt, and a little oil—that is stretched paper-thin.
These delicate sheets of dough are brushed with melted fat, then baked or fried, producing crisp, flaky pastry used in a wide variety of savory and sweet treats. Beginning in the 1960s, Greek immigrants began to popularize hand-made phyllo in parts of America. With the invention of a practical phyllo machine in 1971, commercial phyllo dough was suddenly available frozen in American supermarkets, making it accessible to everyone.
Mizrachim and Sephardim use phyllo in an array of large pies and small pastries, which appear at most celebrations. Among the most popular of phyllo pastries are rolls variously called dedos ("fingers" in Spanish), asabia ("fingers" in Arabic), and sigares/cigares/garros ("cigars"). Floyera, a Greek shepherd's flute about twelve inches long, provided the name for long thin phyllo rolls. Small, triangular-shaped phyllo turnovers are known as samsada or borekas in Turkey, pastel in Morocco, shamiziko in the Balkans, tyropita/tiropetes in Greece, and ojaldres in Ladino.
Phyllo is used to make an array of beloved pastries. Front to back: bulemas/rodanches (coiled tubes), farareer/bulbul yuvasi (bird's nests), and kanafeh/kadayif.
(See also Baklava, Boreka, Bougatsa, Bulema, Galaktoboureko, Khachapuri, Mina, Ojaldre, Pastilla, Strudel, and Warka)
Pickle
Today, the produce departments of grocery stores are laden with fresh fruits and vegetables, most available any time of the year. In addition, numerous types of produce are sold in jars and cans, as well as frozen. Consequently, it is difficult to conceive that before the recent advances of modern technology—the appearance of refrigeration and canning, improved agriculture, high-speed transportation, and dinner reservations—food had to be scratched out of the soil and the availability of most seasonal produce was limited to rather short growing periods. To be sure, grains, dried legumes, a handful of dried sugar-rich fruits, and, in cooler climates, a few root vegetables could be stored for an extended period. Most other items, however, had to be consumed rather quickly or be lost to spoilage. Malnutrition and boring diets were all too prevalent, especially during the winter and periods of famine. Thus it was vital for people to find ways to conserve limited resources. The two most effective preservatives of the ancient world were acid and salt, used individually and in conjunction with each other
.
One of the most popular and widespread of the ancient keeping methods was pickling. (The English term pickle first appeared around 1400, derived from pokel, a northern German word for "salt" and "brine," by way of the Dutch pekel.) Vegetables were mixed or cooked with a little salt, resulting in a limited durability of a few days, or brined with vinegar for a lengthier period—the acid was necessary to forestall the growth of bacteria. Salting involves changing the nature of the produce, which in some instances was tolerated, and in others was most welcomed. Salt plays many roles in pickling: It enhances taste, including removing raw flavors; deters bacteria; and extracts water from the vegetables, which not only keeps the produce crisp, but also prevents the water from seeping out later and diluting the preservative effect of the vinegar. Vegetables brined in salt are edible within a day or so, while those preserved with vinegar, which is rather sharp tasting, are generally left to mellow for at least one and sometimes several weeks. Brined vegetables are crunchy for the initial few days unless first blanched. Relishes are similar to pickles, except the ingredients, which are sometimes a combination of vegetables, are chopped into small pieces, producing a mixture that is usable as a dip, bread spread, or condiment. Larger pickle pieces are served as an appetizer or side dish.
Throughout most of history, not only the elite, but even more so the impoverished masses, relied on pickles and relishes, roles fulfilled by kimchi in Korean cuisine, zuke in Japan, and chutneys in India. In ancient Egypt, food as well as people (mummies) were pickled. The workers who built the Great Wall of China subsisted on a diet consisting primarily of pickled cabbage. Pickles were also an intrinsic part of dining throughout the medieval Middle East, where pickled vegetables called turshi were a favorite dish. Second-century Rome imported pickled vegetables from Spain, and Iberian pickles were later adapted into Sephardic cuisine. To our ancestors, pickles were no trifling matter, but rather a fundamental part of the diet—an essential, not a luxury.
Besides contributing valuable nutrition, relishes and pickles made people's meals palatable and enlivened their diets, which primarily consisted of coarse, hard breads and other starches. The Talmud states, "One who is about to recite the Hamotzi [benediction over bread] is not permitted to do so before salt and leaftan [relish] is placed before him." The Hebrew term leaftan was derived from the word lefet (turnip), which itself came from lahfaht (to twist/turn), connoting the way of harvesting a root vegetable like a turnip by twisting it from the ground. During the Talmudic period, the word lefet was sometimes used generically to mean vegetables, since the turnip was then the most common one. Accordingly, the turnip (leaftan) was the most prevalent form of pickled vegetable in the Middle East; leaftan was also the term used for all relishes, the common accompaniment to bread. Pickled turnips are still a ubiquitous sight on many contemporary Middle Eastern tables.
More than twenty-four hundred years ago, the Chinese discovered a better, more long-lasting way of pickling vegetables without vinegar—a process today known as lacto-fermentation. In this technique, acidifying bacteria found naturally in raw vegetables, notably cabbage, feed off the sugar in the vegetables. The bacteria produce lactic and acetic acids, which give the vegetables a tangy yet mellow taste, slightly soften them, and produce natural compounds that kill harmful bacteria. These acidifying bacteria also transform milk into cheese and yogurt, and are active in bread dough. Lacto-fermentation involves no cooking or vinegar. Instead it requires warmth, and, for most vegetables, sufficient salt to prevent the growth of undesirable bacteria and to extract juice and sugar, while allowing the survival of naturally occurring acid-producing species of bacteria. If there is too little salt, the produce will spoil; if there is too much salt, it will not ferment.
Cooks preparing medieval Middle Eastern pickles relied on vinegar, which was primarily made from wine, an item rare and expensive in northern Europe, where people depended on salt instead. Then around the middle of the sixteenth century, nomadic Tatars and Turks brought the more advanced Chinese technique of lacto-fermentation to eastern Europe, where it was adopted by the Slavs and eastern European Jews from the Baltic to Romania. This technique traveled westward through northern Europe—in many cases spread by Jews—engendering dishes such as sauerkraut, which became the principal vegetable dish in central Europe and a staple of the Ashkenazic diet. In addition to cabbage, produce commonly preserved with lacto-fermentation are beets, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, green beans, olives, peppers, green tomatoes, and turnips.
The cucumber itself had only reached eastern Europe from India by way of Spain a little more than a century before the arrival of lacto-fermentation. Once the cucumber was treated with lacto-fermentation, it emerged as a mainstay of eastern European Jewish food. For many generations, Ashkenazim in the autumn prepared crocks or barrels of cucumbers, typically along with one of beets and one of shredded cabbage, and left them to ferment for several weeks in a warm location. (If the temperature gets too high, yeasts begin to ferment, resulting in mushy vegetables and poor flavor.) After reaching the proper degree of sourness, the crocks were moved to a root cellar or other cool place to last through at least the spring and the arrival of new produce. True "kosher dills," short for kosher-style or Jewish-style, never contain vinegar, but rather rely solely on lactic acid fermentation, which, like the fermentation of sauerkraut, produces a distinctive acidity and flavor. The addition of whole garlic also marks cucumbers as "kosher dills." It has become popular in America to use vinegar to prevent the growth of bacteria, although this addition comes at the expense of the pickle's distinguishing bite. Characteristic of the eastern Ashkenazic pantry were zoyers (sours), especially pickles.
There are three basic types of pickled cucumbers: sour, half sour, and sweet. Sour pickles are fully fermented cucumbers, while half sours are partially fermented in a salt brine for two to four weeks. Sweet pickles, a relatively new innovation, contain a sizable amount of sugar, which is also a preservative. In Yiddish, sour pickles are zoyere ugerkehs, while sweet and sours are zeesih un zoyere ugerkehs.
Eastern Ashkenazim brought their love of pickles with them to America, where pickles were frequently associated with Jews. Sarah Rorer, in Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book (Philadelphia, 1902), in a section entitled "A Group of Jewish Recipes," called pickles "Salt Water Cucumbers."
Within a short time, a myriad of small stores appeared in Jewish areas, notably Manhattan's Lower East Side, offering an assortment of Jewish pickles sold from large barrels. Today, very few of these mom-and-pop pickle shops remain; most became casualties of the large corporate brands. In America, the name most associated with pickles is Henry J. Heinz, who in 1869 began offering his now-famous fifty-seven varieties of pickles to stores in the Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, area. The H. J. Heinz Company would greatly impact America's Jewish community about fifty-five years later, when, in a totally unprecedented move, they introduced the then-revolutionary concept of a national brand of food that was under kosher supervision. Kosher-supervised pickles soon followed. Today, Heinz serves as America's main producer of pickles and relishes, including "kosher dills."
Although we now live in an era when fresh produce is available year-round, pickles still maintain their popularity. One reason is the rise of the delicatessen. After all, what would a pastrami or corn beef sandwich be without a pickle? Yet even more important is something that ancient cultures understood—the pickle's attribute for clearing the palate. The first mouthful of a dish is very flavorful. Then, with each successive bite, the flavors begin to dull and eventually we hardly taste anything as the taste buds get coated with fat or zapped with spices and subsequently the food just glides off the tongue. A pickle cuts through the residue in the mouth, restoring the taste buds and allowing the flavor of the food to emerge.
(See also Choucroute Garnie, Cucumber, Delicatessen, Lemon, Preserved, Rosl, Salt, Sauerkraut, and Turshi)
Pidyon Haben
During the Tenth Plague in Egypt, all the firstborn Egyptians died,
while the Jews were spared. Consequently, the Bible intended that all the future firstborn sons of the Israelites were to be devoted to the service of God. After the incident of the golden calf, which some Israelites worshipped when Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days, the tribe of Levi was substituted for the firstborn. Henceforth, even though the Temple is no longer in existence, firstborn sons are redeemed through a symbolic ceremony called Pidyon HaBen (literally "redemption of the son"). A redemption is not required if the father or the mother is a Levi, including Kohanim (priests).
Because of the limited number of first-born sons, a Pidyon HaBen is one of the most rarely performed life-cycle ceremonies. It is held on the thirty-first day after the birth. However, since a money transaction is at the heart of this ceremony, it is not held on the Sabbath or a holiday when such business deals are forbidden, but postponed until the following weekday. Sephardim traditionally hold the Pidyon HaBen on the evening of the thirty-first day, while Ashkenazim prefer the following morning. Some Moroccans hold the ceremony at the same time of day that the child is born.
The Pidyon HaBen is typically performed in the presence of a minyan (quorum). At the ceremony, the father presents his son, frequently on a silver tray, accompanied with the payment of five shekalim or its equivalent in silver coins (the custom in America is to use silver dollars, while the Bank of Israel mints special Pidyon HaBen coins) to a Kohain. In the tenth century, a symbolic dialogue was established in which the Kohain asks the father whether he wants to give up his son for priestly service. Of course, the father responds that he would prefer to keep him. At this point, the father pays the Kohain, who repeats the phrase "bencha pahdoy" (your son is redeemed) three times. The money is commonly returned to the father, who donates it or its equivalence to charity. Following the Pidyon HaBen, the Kohain recites a blessing over a cup of wine, blesses the child, and then joins the relatives and friends in a Seudat Mitzvah (celebratory meal). Fare at morning ceremonies are generally dairy; Ashkenazim typically serve bagels, lox, and perhaps noodle kugel. Meals at midday and evening ceremonies may be either meat or dairy and, although there are no specific Pidyon HaBen foods, most communities tend to feature their standard celebration fare, including a large challah. Some Ashkenazim give all the celebrants sugar cubes (or today, packets), and garlic cloves to share with others not in attendance, as these items give flavor to other foods just as the Pidyon Haben bestows God's blessing to all who celebrate this rite.
