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July 13, 2012
Embedding ritual, memories
London’s Gefiltefest explores food’s centrality in Jewish culture.
KATHARINE HAMER
London
We’re all familiar with the iconic saying, “They tried to kill us, we survived, now let’s eat,” but why exactly is food so central to the Jewish narrative?
That was one of the questions explored at this year’s Gefiltefest, a festival of all things Jewish and foodie held at the London Jewish Cultural Centre in leafy Hampstead on May 20. The festival was begun two years ago by historical book publisher Michael Leventhal as a means of raising money for Jewish organizations like Leket Israel (Israel’s national food bank) and anti-poverty charity Meir Panim. This year, Gefiltefest raised £3,000 (about $4,800 Cdn), and more than 500 people attended the event, including many from outside the Jewish community.
“Food is a great way of bring people together to enjoy themselves and to learn from each other,” said Leventhal, who also organizes the annual Rabbi Relay Race, in which 20 rabbis spend three weeks in June cycling the length of Britain, from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groat’s in the Highlands of Scotland, for food and environmental charities.
Gefiltefest attendees were treated to a day-long smorgasbord of workshops and demonstrations on everything from the Jewish connection to the slow food movement to the use of food in Woody Allen movies; from challah baking to truffle making; a shakshuka competition and even knife-sharpening skills with a schochet. Some traditions change – out in the garden, tartan-clad Glasgow deli owner Mark Cohen was handing out free samples of kosher haggis – some stay the same, but all of the presenters agreed on one thing: food is a perennial preoccupation for the Jewish people.
Partly, said Rabbi Michael Pollak in a panel discussion on whether Jewish food exists, this is down to halachah. People began eating gefilte fish because – thanks to a prohibition against eating fish bones on the Sabbath – “it was the only safe way of eating fish on Shabbat.” Similarly, a taste for cholent “arises out of a need to find food that will cook for 24 hours and still be satisfying in some way.” We even have dietary laws to thank for lox, once devoured by Jewish merchants as they sailed along the Danube. “Before the days of being able to heat something up in the microwave, Jewish merchants were relying on pickled and smoked foods as their only source of protein,” said Pollak. “Through these merchants, a whole cuisine of proto-sandwich snacks [was born].”
But Jews’ relationship to food goes beyond straightforward kashrut. “I think the Jews have been inventive, creative and imaginative, but if you go to a synagogue Kiddush, and you’re offered sushi, there’s no way this is Jewish food,” said cookbook author Judy Jackson, suggesting that there must, therefore, be some other reason for the enjoyment of raw fish. According to Dina Brawer, who gave a lecture on the role of food in Jewish ritual, “In Judaism, food is a source of worship – not only when it is the food of Shabbat or a festival … even everyday eating can be made into a holy ritual. Food is an important part of Jewish culture because it is a powerful way to embed rituals and memories.”
In fact, several of those memories are shared on the festival’s website (gefiltefest.org), with videos of “Sixty-Second Spiels” – stories about cooking food; eating food, even how to pronounce certain types of food (Jews from Northeast London say “beigel”; in Northwest London, it’s “baggel.”)
“There are many connections between food and Jewish cultural traditions, history, identity, sex and nostalgia,” said film professor Nathan Abrams, who gave a talk on food in the movies of Woody Allen. “The Jewish family meal is the primary site of philosophical, moral and ethical debate about the Jewish condition and Jewish identity.”
Abrams pointed out the vast array of food-centric scenes in the movies of Allen – who is, after all, a confirmed atheist: “The Chinese food scene in Manhattan, the crazy seder in Sleeper, the split-screen families and their foods in Annie Hall; the serious discussion at the seder in Crimes and Misdemeanors, Carnegie Deli and the plates of kosher meat in Broadway Danny Rose, and so on. Certainly, Allen’s use of food in his films intrinsically connects that food to Jewish culture. Foodstuffs are intimately related to Jewish identity and culture in film.”
“Food is integral to how cultures are defined and to our own identities,” said Cordon Bleu graduate Julie Andreshak-Behrman, who spoke about the slow food movement and its connection to heritage and identity. “Food can also be a gatekeeper and communicates messages. We let people in – and keep people out – by what we eat and share around and about food. When we preserve recipes, endangered products and methods, as well as our food memories, we are preserving our culture and heritage.”
We’re also sharing our heritage – at least our taste heritage – with new faces. Deli owner Cohen – swigging from a bottle of Scottish classic soda Irn Bru – said he comes from a long line of kosher caterers. His family has been serving chicken soup to Glasgow’s 5,000-strong Jewish community for more than 25 years. These days, he also has many non-Jewish customers, and he entices them to try new dishes by reassuring them that they’re not all that different from what they’re used to. “I tell them kreplach is like a soft, wee dumpling,” he said, “and that chopped liver sounds disgusting, but it tastes incredible.”
Katharine Hamer, former editor of the Jewish Independent, is currently living and writing near London. Her website is literaryparamedic.com.
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