(RNS) — Ashkenazi food, the kind prepared by Jews descended from Central and Eastern Europe, has gotten a bad rap.Dishes such as gefilte fish, kugel (a baked potato or noodle casserole), matzo ball soup or cholent (a meat and potato stew) are often viewed as bland, dull, outdated, Old World.
Yet it’s precisely these foods that the U.S.-Israeli cookbook author Adeena Sussman is now attempting to revive with her newest recipe collection, “Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals from My Table to Yours.”
The author of 15 cookbooks, Sussman until recently served as recipe developer and writer for celebrities such as Candace Nelson, founder of Sprinkles cupcake bakery, and Chrissy Teigen, the model turned cookbook author and social media influencer. But over the past few years, Sussman has emerged as a celebrity in her own right. Her previous book, “Sababa,” a deep dive into foods inspired by Israelis of Middle Eastern descent, was named one of the best cookbooks of 2019 by The New York Times.
Fig and Pomegranate Brisket in “Shabbat.” (Courtesy photo)
With her latest book, she turns back to her roots. Sussman grew up in Palo Alto, California, in a Modern Orthodox home. Her mother cooked dishes typical of the Ashkenazi tradition, especially on Shabbat — the Friday night meal Jews enjoy after the obligatory rituals of lighting the candles and blessing the wine and the challah.
Sussman, who has lived in Tel Aviv for the past decade, is no longer an Orthodox Jew. But she and her husband still gather around the table for a home-cooked Shabbat meal. And on these occasions she will often cook the foods her mother made — updated and reimagined with classic Israeli staples, like tahini, harissa or amba, a tangy mango pickle condiment.
For Sussman, Shabbat is a time to relax, unwind and feast. It is a time, she writes, of “spiritual tranquility.”
Religion News Service spoke to Sussman while she was on a nine-week book tour that took her to Jewish community centers, synagogues and restaurants in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and Washington. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
What led you to write “Shabbat”?
When I was looking for a subject that would help me expand my own education and also continue to shine a light on the diversity of Israel, Shabbat just kept coming up because it’s a national holiday that 80% of Israelis celebrate weekly. And the focal point is food. From a personal perspective, it was gonna help me continue to explore that Venn diagram of my Jewish identity, …
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Yet it’s precisely these foods that the U.S.-Israeli cookbook author Adeena Sussman is now attempting to revive with her newest recipe collection, “Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals from My Table to Yours.”
The author of 15 cookbooks, Sussman until recently served as recipe developer and writer for celebrities such as Candace Nelson, founder of Sprinkles cupcake bakery, and Chrissy Teigen, the model turned cookbook author and social media influencer. But over the past few years, Sussman has emerged as a celebrity in her own right. Her previous book, “Sababa,” a deep dive into foods inspired by Israelis of Middle Eastern descent, was named one of the best cookbooks of 2019 by The New York Times.
Fig and Pomegranate Brisket in “Shabbat.” (Courtesy photo)
With her latest book, she turns back to her roots. Sussman grew up in Palo Alto, California, in a Modern Orthodox home. Her mother cooked dishes typical of the Ashkenazi tradition, especially on Shabbat — the Friday night meal Jews enjoy after the obligatory rituals of lighting the candles and blessing the wine and the challah.
Sussman, who has lived in Tel Aviv for the past decade, is no longer an Orthodox Jew. But she and her husband still gather around the table for a home-cooked Shabbat meal. And on these occasions she will often cook the foods her mother made — updated and reimagined with classic Israeli staples, like tahini, harissa or amba, a tangy mango pickle condiment.
For Sussman, Shabbat is a time to relax, unwind and feast. It is a time, she writes, of “spiritual tranquility.”
Religion News Service spoke to Sussman while she was on a nine-week book tour that took her to Jewish community centers, synagogues and restaurants in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and Washington. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
What led you to write “Shabbat”?
When I was looking for a subject that would help me expand my own education and also continue to shine a light on the diversity of Israel, Shabbat just kept coming up because it’s a national holiday that 80% of Israelis celebrate weekly. And the focal point is food. From a personal perspective, it was gonna help me continue to explore that Venn diagram of my Jewish identity, …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]