by Gil Marks
Obviously, there is no one standard way of making tzimmes. Some recipes call for whole cuts of meat, others direct cutting the meat into cubes, and some are vegetarian. In some modern versions chicken is substituted. Many tzimmes are seasoned with cinnamon or a few other spices, while others call simply for salt and pepper. There are even some cooks who use paprika. On the other hand, tzimmes can be as simple as cooked carrots and honey. A tzimmes containing meat, fruit, and any other possibilities is a gantze tzimmes, which is also any deluxe version or big production. (Gantze is Yiddish for "entire," as in gantze megilla, "the whole story.")
Tzimmes should be sweet, but not cloying. The flavor of the autumn vegetables should predominate. Tzimmes was originally simmered over a flame or more likely the embers of a fire, but with the spread of the home oven in the nineteenth century, a baked rendition became quite popular. More recently, slow-cooker versions have emerged, which are simmered all day on a low setting. Tzimmes recipes are typically for a considerable quantity, as they are intended for large, festive meals—using a substantial mass of ingredients actually enhances the ultimate flavor. Whatever the ingredients, tzimmes' main requirement is a long cooking time over a low heat to blend the multifarious flavors.
In Yiddish, "tzimmes" also came to mean "a fuss," or more specifically, to make a fuss over something minor, as in machan a tzimmes fun (to make a fuss out of). Perhaps this expression referred not so much to all the peeling, chopping, stirring, and stewing involved, but rather to the Jewish housewife's detailed attention to what ingredients went into her dishes and how they got onto her table, as she took a basically simple procedure and a few simple ingredients and made a tzimmes out of it.
Tzimmes and all of its meanings arrived in America with eastern European immigrants in the late nineteenth century. The word was first mentioned in America in 1882, in reference to an incident at the Ward's Island Shelter for new eastern European Jewish immigrants run by the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society (HEAS). During a Jewish holiday in October, when tzimmes was being served, one of the waiters refused to serve one of the immigrants due to a previous argument. When the assistant superintendent of the shelter threatened the immigrant, he threw a nearby bowl of tzimmes, which catalyzed a fight, called the Tzimmes Revolt, involving all of the immigrants, whom were already angered by the poor conditions and treatment in the shelter. The immigrants elected a leadership council by the time order was restored. The superintendent and his assistant were fired and the shelter was closed in 1883. HEAS ceased operations the following year. Tzimmes is one of those beloved comfort foods that fail to command the respect it deserves, perhaps because of its funny-sounding name or unpretentious nature. It is among the Ashkenazic dishes that has retained popularity in Israel, where it frequently appears at hotel buffets. In America, significantly more meat, such as an entire brisket, was cooked in the dish. Indicative of its popularity, the word tzimmes has even entered the English language and can be found in most dictionaries. Many non-Jewish vegetarian American and British cookbooks now include recipes for tzimmes, although the authors sometimes forget the most important spice—the long cooking time.
Ashkenazic Stewed Root Vegetables with Beef (Fleishig Tzimmes)
6 to 8 servings as a main course
[MEAT]
3 pounds beef brisket, flanken, or chuck; or 4 pounds short ribs (whole or cut into 6 to 8 pieces)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or schmaltz
2 medium onions, halved and sliced
1 to 1½ pounds carrots, sliced into rounds
2 pounds (6 medium) sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered; or 1 pound sweet potatoes and 1 pound (3 medium) white potatoes, peeled and sliced; or 12 ounces parsnips, peeled and sliced
2 to 3 cups pitted prunes, or 1½ cups prunes and 1½ cups dried apricots or peaches (optional)
½ to ¾ cup honey, granulated sugar, or brown sugar
2 bay leaves
About 1 teaspoon table salt or 2 teaspoons kosher salt
Ground black pepper to taste
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 whole cloves, pinch of ground cloves, or dash of ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground ginger (optional)
About 4 cups water, or 2 cups water and 2 cups orange juice
1. Pat the meat dry with paper towels. In a large pot, roasting pan, or heat-proof dish, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the meat, without crowding the pan, and brown on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove the meat. Add the onions and sauté until soft and translucent, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom, about 10 minutes.
2. Return the meat to the pot. Add the carrots, sweet potatoes, optional prunes, honey, bay leaves, salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and, if using, ginger. Add enough water to cover.
3. Cover and bake in a 325°F oven or simmer over a low heat until the meat is tender, 2½ to 3 hours.
U
Udder
The udder is the mammary organ of ruminants; it contains both muscle tissue and glandular meat. Throughout history, it was primarily peasant fare. The texture and flavor of cow's udder when cooked is akin to that of another gland, the pancreas.
The udder was commonly mentioned in rabbinic literature, as any milk found inside a slaughtered animal is not included in the biblical prohibition of meat and milk. The Sages of the Sanhedrin, however, decreed that the milky substance in the udder, because of its similarity to real milk, could not be cooked or eaten with meat. To avoid the act, all the milk had to be carefully removed from the udder before it was cooked. To prepare it, cooks cut two deep perpendicular gashes into the udder, squeeze out any milk, then wash it thoroughly. Ashkenazim and Sephardim also require it to be prepared like liver, so it is sprinkled lightly with salt, broiled under an open flame, and finally well rinsed. This type of practical information, once passed from generation to generation through experience in the kitchen, has largely been lost among Ashkenazim, as few westerners prepare or eat udder and it is at best considered exotic.
The story was quite different until recently. In the past, Ashkenazim and Yemenites prized udder—eiter in Yiddish and kechal in rabbinic Hebrew—over many other types of offal. Udder was generally reserved for special occasions such as holidays, for which it was roasted with some liquid or stewed for an extended time to soften it. The first American Jewish cookbook, Jewish Cookery (Philadelphia, 1871), included this note: "The fillet of the cow-calf is generally preferred for the udder." As late as the early twentieth century, stewed udder remained a common dish among American Jews, even those who managed to make it to the middle class. Thus Regina Frischwasser, food columnist for the Jewish Daily Forward, included "Stewed Udder and Vegetables" in her Jewish American Cook Book (New York, 1945). America's tastes and butchery, however, were quickly changing, and today udder tends to end up processed into sausages. Consumption of udder does, however, continue in some Mizrachi households and a few restaurants in Israel.
V
Vanilla
Of the more than thirty-five thousand members of the orchid family, the only plants that produce an edible fruit are those belonging to the genus Vanilla (from the Spanish for "little sheath"). The flowers of a delicate climbing green-yellow orchid native to Central America form a single long thin pod filled with a black pulp and numerous tiny seeds. After about six weeks, the green pods begin to turn yellow at the tip, a sign of ripeness. After harvesting, producers cure the relatively bland pods by placing them under blankets, which causes them to sweat; this process develops the characteristic vanilla flavor. By the end of the two- to six-month curing process, the pods are shriveled and brown but still supple. Proper processing is vital in achieving vanilla's full flavor. The pods are then graded according to quality and moisture content. Vanilla, due to the labor-intensive process, follows only saffron as the world's most expensive flavoring.
The vanilla pod and seeds contain around four hundred organic flavor components, the primary one being vanillin. Vanilla adds warm undertones and subtle dimension
s to a dish. Beyond adding its own flavor, vanilla, like salt, also serves as a flavor enhancer and its absence from a dish can be very noticeable. In particular, vanilla heightens the flavor of chocolate, softens acids, such as lemon and pineapple, and mellows the flavor of eggs.
For much of its history, vanilla has been intertwined with chocolate. Vanilla was originally cultivated by the Totonaco Indians of the eastern coast of Mexico. After the Aztecs conquered the Totonacos, they demanded vanilla as part of their tribute. The Aztecs mixed the vanilla with cacao beans, another Central American gift, to make a drink called xocolatl (bitter water). In 1520, the Aztecs and their emperor, Montezuma, were in turn conquered by Hernando Cortés. After tasting chocolate and deeming it to be delicious, Cortés shipped cacao beans and vanilla pods to Europe. Besides its use in cocoa, vanilla was initially considered a "hot" food as a medicinal ingredient in the medieval European theory of humors. In 1602, Hugh Morgan, apothecary to Elizabeth I, suggested the use of vanilla as a flavoring by itself beyond its role in cocoa. Vanilla was on its way to becoming the world's favorite flavoring.
The Native Americans refused to share their secrets for growing and processing vanilla with the Spanish, Dutch, and French, but did so with some Jews. Sephardim and Conversos living in Central America, who frequently served as translators between the Spanish, Dutch, and English and local natives, learned the secrets of vanilla from the Indians whom they befriended. A pair of Jewish brothers, David and Rafael Mercado of Pomeroon (now French Guiana), had developed the machinery and processes for refining sugarcane, but then the local Dutch authorities prohibited them from continuing their sugar business. The brothers turned instead to the production of vanilla and cocoa in Mexico, which they controlled from Pomeroon, until the arrival of the French in 1690. Besides developing positive relations with Native Americans, Sephardim living in French Guiana and the Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Suriname, and Barbados, established commercial routes with Conversos in Central and South America, many of whom were relatives. They also traded with Se- phardim in the Old World, notably in the commercial centers of Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Genoa, Leghorn (Livorno), London, Venice, the Ottoman Empire, and eventually Calcutta. In due course, Ashkenazim also entered some of these businesses. Despite occasional economic oppression by the authorities, from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, Jewish merchants, by keeping the vanilla process a secret and through their unparalleled contacts, held a virtual monopoly on the production and trade of vanilla, as along with many other New World products, including allspice, cocoa, indigo, and much of the sugarcane. As a result, in the eighteenth century, there were more Jews and synagogues in Jamaica than in the entire Thirteen Colonies and Canada combined.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the French smuggled some vanilla vines from Mexico to Réunion, an island in the Indian Ocean once called Ile de Bourbon. The vine flourished in its new home, but since the bean pod could only be produced through pollination by special bees (the tiny melipone), the pod remained unique to Mexico. Then in 1840, Tahitians found a way to artificially pollinate the orchid by using a thin bamboo stick to move a membrane separating the stigma from the anther (male organ), thereby releasing the pollen. Soon the vanilla bean was being grown in the Indian Ocean area—Réunion, Madagascar, the Seychelles, and the Comoros—as well as other places with moist tropical climates, such as Tahiti, Indonesia, and Tonga.
In order to transfer vanilla's mellow flavor and aroma to baked goods, Europeans began to insert a bean into a container of sugar so that the surrounding crystals could absorb the vanilla's essence. Vanilla sugar is still extremely popular in central Europe, where it is used in baking instead of vanilla extract, as well as to flavor other desserts and coffee.
In the mid-nineteenth century, as vanilla became more available, pharmacists began to macerate the pods in alcohol to add a little to medicine syrups to mask off flavors. Soon people realized the value of vanilla extract in baking and cooking, and it quickly supplanted rose water. Vanilla beans possess a sweet tone and rounder flavor lacking in vanilla extract. Beans from various locations, as well as extracts made from them, have subtle differences in flavor based on soil and style of curing.
Imitation vanilla, an inexpensive substitute for vanilla extract, is made from only one flavor component, either USP vanillin, derived from cloves or the pulp of coniferous trees, or ethyl vanillin, derived from coal tar. It lacks vanilla's complexity and rich flavor. In addition, when a food containing vanillin is frozen, it has a bitter aftertaste.
(See also Chocolate)
Varenik/Varenikes
Varenik is a stuffed half-moon pasta.
Origin: Ukraine
Other names: Bessarabia and Ukraine: varenyk; Poland: pierog, pirog; Russia: pelmen; Slovakia: piroh.
Varenikes are a quintessential Ukrainian comfort food, inspiring songs and memories. In 1954, Mark Olf, one of America's most prominent Yiddish singers and composers, recorded the song, "Die Mame Kacht Varenikes" (The Mama Cooks the Varenikes).
The contemporary Israel-based singer and musician Samson Kemelmakher, who was born in Moldova in the former Soviet Union in 1953, began his Yiddish song, "Yidishe Maykholim" (Jewish Foods) with the line "Varnishkes mit kaese un mit puter [noodles with cheese and with butter], on Shavuot, my mother gave me." The chorus was, "Yidishe Maykholim, you are in my memory, my mother used to cook and bake. I will never forget, geshmak geven dos esn [how tasty the food was]."
By the sixteenth century, noodles and filled pasta dumplings reached eastern Europe from central Asia, probably as a result of incursions by the Tatars—(Mongolian tribes) who overran Ukraine beginning in 1240 with the sacking of Kiev—or contacts with central Asian traders. They were a dramatic innovation because boiling strips of dough in water was far cheaper than the previous method of deep-frying them in fat. Ukrainians called noodles lokshyna, while eastern Ashkenazim used the similar term lokshen, both from a Persian word for noodles. Poles called their filled pasta half-moons pierogi, and the Yiddish word became pirogen. Meanwhile, the predominant Ashkenazic name for filled pasta triangles became kreplach. In Russia and Ukraine, the half-moon dumplings became known as vareniki, from the Slavic adjective varenyi, "boiled"; thus the word literally meant "boiled one."
With potatoes and cracklings for Hanukkah or cheese for Shavuot or even with fruit or vegetable fillings, half-moon-shaped pasta called varenikes are the favorite comfort food for Ukrainian Jews.
Varenikes filled with mashed potato, the most common filling, were usually mixed with fried onions; for very special occasions, notably Hanukkah, the potatoes were enhanced with gribenes (cracklings)—this combination was called varenikes mit griben. In the late spring through summer, dumplings were filled with curd cheese (varenikes mit kaese); this was a popular Shavuot dish and another special treat for Hanukkah. A beloved indulgence was fillings made from seasonal fruit—most prominently sour cherries, berries, and Italian plums—and fruit preserves; fruit-filled varenikes were often accompanied with sour cream. Other fillings included cabbage and mushrooms; these varenikes were typically pareve and were served with fried onions, although sometimes they were fried in schmaltz.
In Poland, some people employ the term varenikes to specify fruit-filled pirogen and kreplach.
In addition, at some point cooks figured out that it was simpler to mix cooked noodles with fillings, rather than to craft each dumpling; this innovation resulted in unfilled flat pasta squares and rectangles known in Yiddish as varnishkes. Later in America, where immigrants were exposed to the Italian pasta farfalle (butterflies), the term varnishkes came to denote bowtie pasta. The most famous dish made with pasta squares and bowties is kashe mit varnishkes, known in America as kasha varnishkes, which is pasta mixed with cooked buckwheat groats. In addition, varnishkes are also commonly tossed mit kaese (with cheese).
(See also Kasha Varnishkes, Kreplach/Krepl, Lokshen, and Pirog)
Vinegar
Vinegar, a word derived from the
Old French vin aigre (sour wine), is the world's most important condiment— unless salt is counted as one—as well as one of the earliest preservatives. Its discovery was most certainly a fortunate accident, the result of the exposure of wine and beer to naturally occurring bacteria in the air. Not wanting to waste even seemingly spoiled food, the ancients found that the sour yet refreshing liquid was a boon to dishes and food preservation.
Vinegar, a mixture of acetic acid and water, is produced when bacteria metabolize alcohol. Technically, any spirit containing less than 18 percent alcohol can naturally become vinegar when infected by certain airborne bacteria. The results of this method of fermentation, however, are rather inconsistent. Therefore, vinegar is usually made by adding a bacterial culture called a "mother"—it is the slimy film that forms on top of vinegar" and, when it grows heavy, sinks to the bottom—to alcoholic beverages, such as wine, hard cider, and malt.
Red wine vinegar is a tangy, full-bodied type made from red grapes, such as Burgundy and Pinot Noir, and used in salads, marinades, and sauces. White wine vinegar is made from white grapes, such as Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Cider vinegar is an amber-colored, sharp, fruity vinegar made from fermented apple cider; its bite is ideal for condiments and pickled fruits. White vinegar is made from ethyl alcohol distilled from grain, and is unacceptable for Passover. Malt vinegar is a mild and slightly sweet type made from malted barley, generally in the form of soured ale, and is also unacceptable for Passover.
