Encyclopedia of Jewish Food

by Gil Marks

  about 6 cups

  [DAIRY]

  2 medium (about 1 pound total) cucumbers, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and coarsely grated, diced, or thinly sliced; or 1 large English cucumber, coarsely grated, diced, or thinly sliced

  About 2 teaspoons table salt or 4 teaspoons kosher salt for sprinkling

  3 cups thick plain yogurt

  1 cup ground toasted walnuts or 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar (optional)

  2 to 6 cloves garlic, mashed

  About 1/8 teaspoon ground white or black pepper

  3 to 4 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, dill, or mint; or ½ cup chopped watercress

  1. Place the cucumbers in a colander or large strainer, toss with the salt, weigh down with a plate, and let stand at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 hours. Drain and squeeze out the excess moisture.

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. Add the cucumbers and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

  Tea

  The most widely drunk beverage in the world, following water, is tea, which is made from the dried leaves of an evergreen shrub native to southern China. The tea plant resembles a small orange tree and sprouts odorless, long, leathery, dark green leaves. Originally, the leaves were simply chewed, yielding a mild astringent taste and stimulation. Tea as a beverage probably developed first as a medicine and subsequently as a soup. The first written record of tea occurred only about two thousand years ago in a contract of a Chinese emperor's poet laureate. Drinking tea probably only became common among the Chinese upper class in the Tang dynasty (618—907 CE); during this period, the preparation and consumption of tea developed into a fine art. During the Ming dynasty (1368—1644), the now-common fermentation and brewing (infusing rather than boiling) techniques were developed, around the same time that European powers began taking a stronger interest in Asia.

  The flavor of tea depends on the variety, growing conditions, and processing method. There are four basic types: green, white, oolong (brown), and black. Black tea, the world's most popular type, is withered, then lightly crushed to expose its enzymes to the air, thereby inducing fermentation. As the leaves dry, they turn coppery, then black, resulting in a milder flavor. Tea descriptions and grades are usually named after the variety and size of leaves or region of origin. Today, most teas are made from blends of tea leaves.

  A glezele tey (Yiddish for "glass of tea") with a sugar cube was emblematic of the life of eastern Ashkenazim.

  Tea spread throughout eastern Asia, where it was often prepared and served in a ritualistic and poetic manner. In the nearby regions of central Asia, Persia, and parts of the Arab world, tea became not merely a beverage, but an important means of social interaction. Although Marco Polo mentioned seeing tea in China in 1285 and the Portuguese noticed it in their port of Macau in 1557, it was only introduced to the West in Amsterdam by the Dutch in 1610. At this time, the Portuguese began transporting the dried leaves as well. Tea appeared in France in 1636 and was subsequently available in England, but was largely ignored until 1662, when Charles II of England married the Portuguese princess Catherine de Braganza, who introduced the practice of drinking tea to English society. Shortly thereafter, the first shops specializing in serving hot tea, as well as those offering coffee and cocoa, opened in London. Soon wealthier Englishmen were brewing these hot drinks at home and London quickly became the tea capital of the world. It was, however, only in the eighteenth century, when cane sugar became increasingly available and less expensive, that tea emerged as the British national drink.

  Differences in preparing and serving this beverage developed. Some prefer plain tea, while others add sweeteners or a spot of lemon juice. The British commonly mix in honey and milk. Some eastern Europeans sweeten tea with a spoonful of preserves. Mint tea is especially popular in parts of the Middle East. Russians and Arabs prefer drinking tea from glasses, while Asians and the British favor pottery cups.

  In Uzbekistan, hot green tea (kuk cha) prepared in a samovar is enjoyed at the end of every meal as well as frequently in between. Visitors to an Uzbeki house are given the royal treatment and presented with green tea and then a dastarkhan (literally meaning "tablecloth") featuring an array of treats, including confections, pastries, dried fruit, nuts, and preserves. In the cities, a chaykhana (tea house) dots practically every other block. Most chaykhana have a roofed pavilion where Uzbeks sit, any time of the day or night, on cushions at low tables sipping green tea, munching samsas (filled pastries) and sweets, chatting, and playing backgammon.

  In the mid-eighteenth century, Russia began importing tea from China; it was initially transported by camel caravans. However, only in the nineteenth century—with the emergence of sugar beet factories, the increasing availability of less expensive and time-consuming means of transportation, and the spread of the samovar—did tea emerge as the predominant social drink in Russia and then much of eastern Europe. A samovar is a large metal urn that keeps liquids hot for an extended period. (The word derived from the Russian samo, "self," and varit, "to boil," so it literally means "self-boiler.") In the period before Louis Pasteur, people sensed that tea was much safer to drink than plain water and quickly gravitated to it.

  While coffee became the hot beverage of preference for those Jews in central Europe, tea became a way of life among eastern Ashkenazim. A glezele tey (little glass of tea), an experience of relaxation typically shared with others, became the embodiment of Yiddish informal social interaction (a schmooze) and eastern European culture. Over glasses of tea around a samovar, families laughed and chatted about their day and current events, rabbinic scholars discussed points of law, and socialists spiritedly debated politics. An individual would inevitably sit and read the Bible or perhaps peruse a Yiddish newspaper while sipping a glass. Among the numerous songs of influential Yiddish songwriter Mordechai Gebirtig, killed by the Nazis in the Kraków Ghetto on Bloody Thursday (June 4, 1942), is "Noch a Glezele Tey" (Another Little Glass of Tea), about a husband and wife arguing about the name of their unborn baby. A glass of tea with a sugar cube was among the few items allowed by eastern European sages before the morning prayers.

  Eastern European tea was typically black and relatively weak. The water was commonly boiled in a samovar or, less preferably, an inexpensive tcheinik (teakettle). (The famous Yiddish phrase "hocken a tcheinik" means "to nag/chop like a teakettle.") Tea was rarely prepared for an individual cup, but rather loose leaves were brewed in a small teapot into a concentrated tea "essence/sense," from which a little of the concentrated tea liquid was later mixed into hot water. The tea was blended in a glass so the preparer could determine the strength of the tea by the degree of darkness. The sense method proved particularly ideal for enjoying tea on the Sabbath; both the hot water and concentrate were prepared before nightfall on Friday and mixed just before drinking any time during the day.

  Eastern Europeans drank their tea, typically five to six cups a day and frequently many more, in a customary way—they took sips from a glezele (glass) with a small lump of sugar wedged between the teeth (v'prikusku, "with a bite"). This custom was as ingrained for them as the tea ceremony was for the Japanese. Sugar came in large conical loaves, which were chopped into bite-sized pieces using a large wooden board with an attached sharp blade and a second blade on a hinge that was forced down like a paper cutter. When sipping a cup of tea, a lump was placed between the teeth or sometimes nestled in the pocket of the cheek or under the tongue. Perhaps this initially emerged as a more economical method than stirring in granulated sugar, or maybe it was a way for people to demonstrate to others that they could afford sugar, as the lump remained visible for everyone to see, or perhaps it was simply easier to cut out cubes than to pound the sugar in a mortar into small granules. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in Resurrection (1899), "An ordinary lump of sugar used so by an expert peasant tea drinker will sweeten over a dozen glasses of tea." In parts of Poland, a glezele tey was also drunk with a spoonful o
f slivkes (plum preserves), but in most areas of eastern Europe a sugar lump was de rigueur among non-Jews and Jews. On Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, sugar lumps were sometimes dipped with a teaspoon into plum brandy and then set on fire before they were dropped into the tea glass. A Yiddish proverb advises, "If you are bitter at heart, sugar in the mouth will not help you."

  In Harold Robbins's best-selling novel The Carpetbaggers (New York, 1961), one of the characters, a junkman, initiates a typical business transaction with an elderly Jewish woman over a glass of tea in her apartment:

  His father picked up a lump of sugar from the bowl and placed it between his lips, then sipped the tea. After he swallowed the first scalding mouthful, he opened his mouth and said, "Ah!" "Good, isn't it?" Mrs. Saperstein was smiling. "That's real tea. Swee-Touch-Nee. Like in the Old Country. Not like the chazerai they try to sell you here."

  His father nodded and lifted the glass again. When he put it back on the table, it was empty and the polite formalities were over. Now it was time to attend to business. "Nu, Mrs. Saperstein?"

  Eastern European Jews, even as immigrants to America, never served tea with granulated sugar and never dissolved the lumps in the tea. The class differences in Russia, where the elite would not comport themselves like common folk, who used sugar cubes, even in the act of drinking tea, led to a famous nineteenth century Yiddish folksong, "Vi Azoi Trinkt Der Kayser Tey?" (How Does the Czar Drink Tea?). The lyrics supplied the response to the question: "One takes a loaf of sugar and one makes a hole in it and pours in the tea, and mixes and mixes and mixes. That's how the czar drinks tea." (The song then asks how the czar eats potatoes.) In America, however, as the descendants of eastern Europeans acculturated, the sugar cube between the teeth disappeared and was replaced by granulated crystals, and often the tea was supplanted by coffee.

  The British control over the Levant as well as the arrival of tea-loving Jewish immigrants from across the globe led to an early tea industry in Israel as well as the modern Hebrew word for it, tey. Consequently, afternoon tea, like the British habit, became a widespread Israeli practice. Also due to the British influence, many Israelis began serving their tea in cups and, appropriately for the land, with milk and honey, frequently accompanied with biskotim (simple flat cookies).

  In Moscow in 1849, Klonimus Wolf Wissotzky (1824—1904), a young Russian Jew and Torah scholar, dissatisfied with the poor-quality tea being sold, launched a small store selling imported tea from China and quickly found success. The company eventually began opening offices throughout eastern Europe, in New York City in 1904, and, finally in 1907, in London. Wissotzky emerged as the world's largest purveyor of tea, with factories in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland and tea plantations in India and Ceylon. Following the revolution in 1917, the company, then headed by Wissotzky's descendants, relocated to London and Poland. In 1922, the company opened a branch in Tel Aviv and in 1936, one of the Wissotzky's descendents, Shimon Zidler, established a plant in Israel, becoming the company's headquarters. Today Wissotzky, run by the fifth generation of the family, is by far Israel's largest tea company. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, after an eighty-year absence, Wissotzky returned to its roots, selling prepackaged tea in Russia.

  Meanwhile after the British departed from Israel and other Western areas grew in influence there, coffee soon overshadowed tea. For many years, Israeli tea was often strong and of questionable quality. Sugar cubes by and large became a novelty of the past, although Anwar Sadat, during his 1977 diplomatic meetings with the Israeli prime minster, noted that his fellow inveterate tea drinker Menachem Begin drank his tea Russian-style with a cube of sugar in his mouth. However, between 1998 and 2003, coffee sales dropped by 7 percent, while tea correspondingly increased. Part of this change was due to the influx of nearly a million Russians, as well as an increase in health consciousness. In addition, more recently high-quality teas have become a trend in Israel. As a result, Israeli newspapers began to write articles about "the renaissance of tea in Israel." And suddenly sugar cubes have returned, to a limited degree.

  (See also Naa-Naa)

  Teig/Teyg (Ashkenazic Pastry Dough)

  By the late nineteenth century, Ashkenazim made three basic types of dough (teig/teyg in Yiddish) many originating in the kitchens of central Europe: hefeteig (yeast dough), murbeteig (flaky pastry), and boymlteig (oil pastry). These doughs lay at the heart of Ashkenazic baking and were used to make various savory pastries, such as knishes and piroshkes, and sweet ones, notably an assortment of kichlach (egg cookies) and kuchen (cakes).

  Hefeteig is simply enriched bread dough. A very rich version, with larger amounts of sugar and butter, is feine heifeteig. Yeast doughs also contain varying amounts of eggs. Oil is used for pareve baked goods. For dairy treats, sour cream or quark is sometimes added to the dough for flavor and texture. Yeasts doughs are used to make fluden (layered pastry), kuchen (coffee cakes), kipfel (crescents), babka, and hamantaschen.

  Boymlteig, actually a variation of strudel dough (strudelblatter), is a firm dough made with oil. It was originally unleavened, but many modern variations include baking powder. Some versions are made with egg, while others omit it. In an innovative late nineteenth-century adaptation, some mashed potatoes from the filling are incorporated into the dough. As a result of the oil, the dough remains tender even when rolled out, making it ideal for the thin, crisp crust of knishes and piroshkes. The advent in the nineteenth century of various inexpensive vegetable oils led to their widespread use in baking; for Jews, they largely replaced schmaltz and butter until the popularization of margarine and vegetable shortening in the twentieth century.

  Muerbeteig or murbeteig (mürbe is German for "crumbly") refers to the crumbly texture of the baked pastry made from a butter-rich dough. Classic muerbeteig contains no other tenderizing ingredients (i.e., no sugar, eggs, or milk) besides fat; the amount of fat must equal at least half the weight of the flour or the pastry will be tough and chewy. A little water is necessary in order to bind the dough and build up enough gluten so that the crust holds its shape. Too much liquid produces a tough, unflaky pastry; too little causes it to fall apart. A little acid (vinegar, lemon juice, or sour cream) is sometimes substituted for an equal amount of water to help keep the gluten relaxed, which makes the dough easier to handle and the pastry more tender. Sour cream also adds flavor. When sour cream is substituted for the water in muerbeteig, it becomes smetenehteig. Adding a little sugar and sometimes eggs or egg yolks to muerbeteig results in what the French call pâte sucrée, used for sweet fillings, while increasing the amount of sugar creates a dough for cookies. Muerbeteig serves as the basis of Ashkenazic pastries (geback), including tarts, turnovers, fluden, apfelschalet, apfelboyeleh, gebleterter kugels (cookie strudels), and even cheesecake crust and American pies.

  The first edition of The Settlement Cook Book (Milwaukee, 1901) included three recipes for "Murberteig," all made with butter. Until the popularization of shortening and margarine at the beginning of the twentieth century, muerbeteig was always made with butter. Since solid vegetable shortening contains no water, it melts slowly, producing the flakiest and most tender crusts. Shortening, however, also coats the tongue, thereby smothering the taste buds. Butter, on the other hand, melts in the mouth as well as possesses superior flavor, producing the most flavorful, colorful crusts. Since butter contains water, however, the water in the butter turns to steam before the pastry is able to set, resulting in a less flaky crust. Therefore, some bakers use both shortening and butter. For meat occasions, kosher bakers use shortening or margarine.

  Since most Ashkenazic baking was for the Sabbath, festivals, or other occasions with a meat meal, a pareve dough was the most common. More recently, as the healthfulness of margarine and shortening have been questioned, oil pastry has risen again.

  (See also Filling/Fullung (Ashkenazic Pastry Fillings), Fluden, Knish, Kuchen, Masa (Sephardic Dough), Pastida, Piroshke, Strudel, and Zwetschgenkuchen)

  Ashkenazic Fla
ky Pastry (Muerbeteig)

  about 1½ pounds

  [DAIRY or PAREVE]

  This makes enough for one double-crust 9-inch deep-dish pie, three single-crust 9-inch pies, one 15½-by-10½-inch baking sheet, two 13-by-9-inch baking pans, twelve 4-inch tartlets, or thirty-six 3-inch turnovers.

  3 cups (15 ounces) all-purpose flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  4 to 6 tablespoons sugar (optional)

  1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (9 ounces) unsalted butter or shortening, chilled, or ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons shortening and ½ cup butter

  About 7 tablespoons ice water, or about 6 tablespoons water mixed with 1 tablespoon cider vinegar or lemon juice

  1. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, and, for a sweet pastry, the sugar. Using the tips of your fingers or a pastry blender, cut in the butter to make a mixture that resembles coarse crumbs.

  2. Sprinkle the ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, over a section of the flour. Gently mix with a fork after each addition, moistening that section. Push the moistened dough aside and gradually add enough of the remaining water to barely moisten the flour and make a mixture that just holds together. Do not overmix.

  3. Place on a lightly floured surface and form into a rectangle. Using the heel of your hand, beginning with the end farthest from you, gently push down a little of the dough (about 2 tablespoons at a time), then push and smear it away from you. Flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 days.

  Ashkenazic Oil Pastry (Boymlteig)

  about 1½ pounds

  [PAREVE]

  This recipe makes enough for about thirty-six 3-inch turnovers, twelve large knishes, forty-eight small knishes, or ninety-six bite-sized knishes.

  About 3 cups (15 ounces) all-purpose flour

  1 teaspoon baking powder or 1 package (2¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast

  ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt