[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

Of course Knadlach in broth can also be considered a dish that is separate from Grießnockerl in broth.  But the questions are how different and whether this can be seen as the basis for proclaiming a distinct and unique "cuisine" as opposed to a religion-based practice of adaptation that has resulted in some different derivative dishes.

I still don't see how it's possible to have the discussion without a standard for determining the uniqueness of dishes. What's the standard for determining, for example, whether the Russian svatovska juha (vegetable soup with semolina dumplings) is or isn't the same dish as the German/Austrian Grießnockerl in broth. There are semolina dumplings in many European cuisines, including the variety of gnocchi made from semolina. Are they all the same thing?

The answer, I think, is that they're not terribly different (although it would appear that svatovska juha is more different from Grießnockerl in broth than matzoh ball soup). But what makes Russian cuisine different from Bavarian cuisine is a wide range of ingredients, characteristic approaches to ingredients and signature dishes. The point is that we're not going to distinguish Bavarian cuisine from Russian cuisine based on dishes with similarities as close as svatovska juha and Grießnockerl in broth. Also, I think it's reasonable that one could observe that there is a sufficient commonality among the cooking of the Slavic peoples to make the argument that there is "Slavic cuisine" and that Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, etc. represent regional variations similar to the regional variations in Italian cooking (which may actually be more varied).

I'm not sure the answer is all that important, because I think the way the cuisine needs to be defined isn't particularly dependent on the different-dish theory, however since it has come up I can't really see a basis for saying that all Jewish dishes are exact copies of some other dish. If you reduce all these dishes to their most formally accurate recipes, the differences are pretty clear.

So, I'm curious if you can forward support for the idea of a unique "Jewish cuisine" that is distinct from "Eastern European" cuisine in any meaningful way other than the fact that it is/was kosher? What ties it together in a culinary sense? I agree that the "different dish" theory is not essential, but your point doesn't necessarily support the idea of "Jewish food" as a distinct cuisine. Because, for example, one could certainly say: "Yea, I agree that matzo ball soup is a different dish. So what? According to any culinary criteria, it's entirely within the scope of non-Jewish Eastern European cooking. How does matzoh ball soup deserve to be considered 'from a different cuisine' when dumplings made by the gentile down the street with old rye bread don't?" I guess what I'd like to see is a list of distinct dishes/treatments and an cuisine-based way of setting them apart from other traditions as well as tying them together into a culinary tradition of their own. I think it's certainly possible to say "this dish and this dish and this dish are Jewish" but that doesn't necessarily equal a "cuisine."

I actually think the project of defining Jewish cuisine has a lot of parallels to the project of defining American cuisine, because American cuisine is also largely derivative, with adaptation and evolution contributing to it, and too diverse to define all that well. Nonetheless, it's pretty easy to say hot dogs, hamburgers and fried chicken are American cuisine, even though you can certainly find those same items all over the world in various formats.

There are some parallels, to be sure. But the main difference is that all the things you're talking about that make "American food" into "American food" have to do with the fact that they're taking place here, in America. Barbecue evolved into the American classic that it is precisely because of the new and unique culture, ingredients and cooking styles that grew out of living together in a new location. What makes the idea of "Jewish cuisine" different from all other cuisines, is that all the other cuisines are tied to location.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

Come to Israel and I will give you an education on Kosher food that isn't boring and bland Polish food.

I think what people have been saying is that, in America anyway, "Jewish food" is seen as something different from "kosher food." Most Americans would see your kosher Moroccan food as "kosher Moroccan food" and not necessarily as "Jewish food." This certainly seems to be the sense in which savethedeli and others have been using "Jewish food."

My question is: Why must we change things?  If you're on Atkins, fine. You're not going to eat a knish or a piece of cheese kugel with sour cream on it.  But if you want some good tasting Jewish food, learn to make it or find somebody who does.  It does exist and people are eating it.

I think the original premise of this thread is that fewer and fewer people are eating these foods (especially outside of the holidays). Most people seem to think it's because they are increasingly viewed as bland, old fashioned, unhealthy and out of step with current culinary trends.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

How would you make Jewish food (loosely defined) interesting and attractive again?

Make new Jewish food that's consistent with the times and the lifestyles/preferences of modern-day American Jews. It's unclear to me that one can update or reinterpret Jewish adaptations based on 200 year-old Eastern European cooking without loosing whatever it was that made these foods seem "Jewish" to American Jews. This will be difficult, however, because most modern-day American Jews aren't kosher, and Jewish dietary law is precisely the thing that produced adaptations like matzoh ball soup. Without the dietary laws, how can new Jewish food be created?

I'm interested: do you have any ideas how to update/reinterpret/reinvigorate/lighten/modernize matzoh ball soup, kreplach, kugel, cholent, knishes, etc. and still keep them "Jewish"? One of the major issues is going to be that people today want to eat lighter, healther, less starchy/fatty food that, as Fat Guy put it "emphasizes fresh ingredients and bright flavors."

[What would vinegar add to bread dough?]

coquus, the acid in lemon juice is primarily citric acid. I'm not sure what effect that has on gluten. The effect of acetic acid on gluten is easily observable. Just make up a dough of flour and vinegar. You'll notice that the dough won't hold together, and you can see the gluten sheets ripping apart like an overfermented sourdough.

You may have something there with respect to yeast inhibition, though. Acetic acid (and a low pH in general) does inhibit growth and activity of bread yeast.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

Well, I'd say this:

Grießnockerl are dumplings made with fat (butter) and a fairly granular, golden-colored grain (semolina), served in meat broth. Beef broth is common, but I've had lots of Grießnockerl in chicken broth. Juniper and nutmeg are not standard or required.

Knadlach are dumplings made with fat (schmaltz, a kosher substitution for butter) and a fairly granular, golden-colored grain-substitute (matzoh meal), served in meat broth. Chicken seems standard in the United States (I don't know if this is true in Eastern Europe). Some people use seltzer to lighten the dumplings, but this is by no means universal.

So... yea, I'd say that the evidence trends towards Knadlach being a kosher adaptation of Grießnockerl. That said, Grießnockerl in broth isn't consumed much in the United States, so most people are unfamiliar with it. Matzoh ball soup, on the other hand, is common among American Jews and is fairly unique among foods familiar to Americans. Therefore, it is popularly identified as "Jewish food" here. If, on the other hand, Grießnockerl in broth was ubiquitous here, this would not be the case and Knadlach in broth would be considered a Jewish variant much like the coq au vin variation described by Swisskaese. Also, if I were to make matzoh balls using matzoh meal, butter and a touch of nutmeg, and put those matzoh balls in beef broth, would it no longer be "matzoh ball soup"? (Also, isn't markk's post above showing Knadlach with beef?)

Of course Knadlach in broth can also be considered a dish that is separate from Grießnockerl in broth. But the questions are how different and whether this can be seen as the basis for proclaiming a distinct and unique "cuisine" as opposed to a religion-based practice of adaptation that has resulted in some different derivative dishes.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

cakewalk, see the last paragraph you quoted for reasons this is true with respect to some dishes. Also, we of course don't have much of a population of French-derived Jews and their cooking in America (or elsewhere around the world) whereas we do have a sizeable population of Eastern European-derived Jews and their cooking. I would suggest that matzoh balls are only considered "Jewish food" because they are made with matzoh, a uniquely Jewish ingredient. If you sat down a bowl of matzoh ball soup in front of someone in who is used to eating Grießnockerl soup every day, it's likely they wouldn't tell much difference. Just because matzoh ball soup has made it into the "Jewish food cannon" for most American Ashkenazi Jews doesn't mean much. Chicken parm heros have made it into the "Italian food canon" for most Italian-Americans, but it's still not really Italian food.

[All About Bitters (Part 1)]

This is an odd list, in my opinion. It lists potable bitters like Fernet Branca and Campari on the same list as non-potable bitters like Angostura, which doesn't make any sense to me.

[What would vinegar add to bread dough?]

It could be there as a flavor enhancer. It's also the case that acetic acid wrecks gluten, which has a variety of effects.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

Jewish food is adapted food from the country they lived in.

Right. This is the same point I have also been arguing.

For example, let's take a dish like Coq au Vin that calls for bacon in the dish. We would replace the bacon with smoked goose breast. It doesn't taste that much different from the bacon. It has that smoky, greasy bacony flavour. And, it tastes similar to the treif version of the dish. I don't think this is very different as slkinsey and FatGuy are claiming and I can say that because I used to not keep Kosher and have eaten both versions of Coq au Vin.

Your coq au vin example is an interesting one. But, to be clear, don't think Fat Guy and I are arguing the same point. I'm in your camp, suggesting that "Jewish food" consists essentially of kosher adaptations of the cuisine of the country in which Jews live(d). savethedeli, and to a certain extent Fat Guy, seem to be arguing that "Jewish food" exists as a distinct cuisine in the same way that, e.g., Italian, Indian and Chinese food exist as distinct cuisines.

I do think it's possible that, once Ashkenazi Jews moved out of Eastern Europe to other parts of the world, bringing with them their Eastern European culinary traditions and retaining different "old world" dishes in their new homes than non-Jewish Eastern European immigrants, the Jewish adaptations of old world Eastern European dishes that were preserved by immigrant Jews came to be regarded by Jew and non-Jew alike as "Jewish food" rather than "Eastern European food" in the "new world."

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

I think if you look at most any dish anywhere you can find a lot of parallels to a lot of other dishes nearby and elsewhere. The question of how different a dish has to be to be unique is one that comes up no matter what kind of cuisine one is evaluating. If you paint with a very broad brush, all dumplings are dumplings. If you paint with a medium brush, all Asian dumplings are one thing. If you paint with narrower brushes, they break down into categories, and so on. Statements like "this Jewish dish is similar to this East European dish" can't be evaluated without criteria for determining their validity: what does "similar" mean? Are similar dishes the same, or are they different dishes? The average Jewish dish is probably more different from its East European ancestor than the average Italian regional dish is from the one the next region over, but we have no problem declaring each Italian regional cuisine to be a cuisine.

While I agree with your general point about broad versus medium versus small strokes of the brush, I'm not so sure about some of your other conclusions.

First, it's not clear to me that we necessarily think of, e.g., Umbriano cooking as being an entirely distinct "cuisine" from Marchegiano cooking. Rather, they are closely related culinary aesthetics that evolved certain distinct dishes and methods largely based on geographically-mediated differences having to do with availability of certain ingredients, etc. It's not like the cooking style changes drastically when one crosses the border from one region to another, and the reason is that the geography and availability of ingredients, etc. are the same on either side of the border. This is fundamentally different from the way Jewish cooking evolved in, e.g., Eastern European communities, where the availability of ingredients and cultural/culinary influences were the same, but the Jewish community did/didn't use certain ingredients, combinations and cooking techniques (for religious reasons). I'm not sure that makes the Jewish cooking in those communities a "cuisine" that is distinct from the non-Jewish cooking. Unless, of course, one reduces the brush to the level of narrowness that lets us say that the cooking on the North side of Napoli is a "cuisine" that is distinct from the cooking on the South side of Napoli.

I also have to take some exception with your idea that "the average Jewish dish is probably more different from its East European ancestor than the average Italian regional dish is from the one the next region over." There is more difference between the regional dishes near the coast as opposed to in the mountains of the same Italian region than there is between the average Jewish dish and the cooking of its Eastern European region of origin. The food in Rome and the food in Perugia? Way more different. The reason is that the geography and ingredients are different (the reason Italian regional styles have so much more variation than, e.g., Eastern European regional styles that extend through a much larger area is that the geography and ingredients in Italy change much more drastically). To stick with the Italian example, we have carciofi alla Giudia ("Jewish style artichokes") from Rome. For sure this is a "Jewish dish." Heck, it's even in the name. But are artichokes fried in extra virgin olive oil -- and, for that matter, the cooking of Trastevere in general -- so different from all other Roman cooking that is belongs to a separate "cuisine"? No, not really. To make another example, are matzo balls so different from Grießnockerl that they represent an entirely distinct class of cooking, a different "cuisine"? Or is this difference more similar to the kind of variations one might find between one town and the next town down the river. I would suggest the latter (have a look at some Grießnockerl in broth here -- if I only showed you the picture, you'd think it was matzoh ball soup).

Part of the question I'd ask is "can you eat a certain dish and tell it's 'Jewish' without being told that it is?" So, for example, can you eat a bowl of meat dumplings in broth and say "this is kreplach as opposed to any of a dozen or more other Eastern European meat dumplings in broth"? If not, I'd suggest that kreplach are simply "Eastern European kosher meat dumplings" and not part of a distinctively different cuisine on the merits of the food. If you want to argue that it's the cultural connection, and not any thing intrinsic about the food, that ties together "Jewish food," I'd go along with that. But, as I've been saying, this makes it very difficult to update or reinterpret these foods and still keep their "Jewishness" -- especially to those living outside the culture in which the dish evolved.

Back some years ago the legendary Italian tenor Franco Corelli, who was just coming the Metropolitan opera with great fanfare and consequently stealing the thunder of legendary (Jewish) American tenor, Richard Tucker, asked Tucker for his advice on how to sing Puccini.  Tucker was said to have replied, "to sing it right, you have to be Jewish."

Well, undoubtedly he said that with a lot of humor mixed in there. But with a great deal of truth as well, because of Tucker's cantorial background. A lot of the unabashed wailing (and I mean that in a good way) that cantors do is frequently a very good thing in singing opera, and something that more restrained singers don't do (though in truth I'd have thought it applied as much to singing Bel Canto as Puccini). What is know to Italian tenors as the "Italianate sob" is know to cantors as the "cantorial sob".

Hmm. As an Italianate operatic tenor myself, I have to say that I both agree and disagree here. Cantors do often sing with what we in opera might call "slancio," but the singing method is often too tense to fill a large theater over an orchestra and extend through the full operatic tenor range without breaking down eventually. This may simply be a matter of technique and training, or may be a stylistic difference. I'd also argue that the "sob" is only appropriate in Italian opera in the verismo style (post 1890 or so), and certainly never in belcanto opera (roughly 1810 to 1840).

Which style came first is hard to say. Likely they evolved in parallel, perhaps each influencing the other back and forth as vocal styles and techniques changed dramatically over the course of the 1800s. To bring it back to food, this is likely a similar situation to the way Jewish and non-Jewish foods evolved within a given culture, except that everyone cooks and eats while not everyone sings professionally, so I would expect a much greater level of commonality in cooking influences, styles, etc.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

According to my college roomie, no. I made bagels, she pronounced them good, but not really bagels. When I asked why they werent really bagels (thinking I'd made a processing/flavor/texture error), she said no matter what I did, they'd never really be bagels because I wasnt Jewish.

Back some years ago the legendary Italian tenor Franco Corelli, who was just coming the Metropolitan opera with great fanfare and consequently stealing the thunder of legendary (Jewish) American tenor, Richard Tucker, asked Tucker for his advice on how to sing Puccini. Tucker was said to have replied, "to sing it right, you have to be Jewish."

But the link back in post #6 on this thread would seem to hint that it might not always be like this, in every situation.

Tucker is considered one of the greatest operatic tenors of the 20th century in the Italian and French repertoire, and certainly Corelli's equal. And, for that matter, the tenor considered by many (including myself) to have been the greatest of the 20th century in the Italian and French repertoire was a Swede, Jussi Björling.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

According to my college roomie, no. I made bagels, she pronounced them good, but not really bagels. When I asked why they werent really bagels (thinking I'd made a processing/flavor/texture error), she said no matter what I did, they'd never really be bagels because I wasnt Jewish.

Back some years ago the legendary Italian tenor Franco Corelli, who was just coming the Metropolitan opera with great fanfare and consequently stealing the thunder of legendary (Jewish) American tenor, Richard Tucker, asked Tucker for his advice on how to sing Puccini. Tucker was said to have replied, "to sing it right, you have to be Jewish."

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

People would say it was a "New York" restaurant.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

Jewish foods developed in the lands where Jews lived at the time, and as such derived much from local dishes and ingredients.  It's base is certainly that of whatever Diaspora country the dish appeared in at the time (Poland or Hungary or Greece), but can you honestly say that due to this no such thing as Jewish food exists?  Though the noodle is of Chinese origin, many cultures lay claim to it.  I don't think there's an exclusivity in food ownership, and if Jews consider a food Jewish (say kasha or chopped liver), than that should matter to them.

What I am suggesting is that the foods that were cooked/consumed by Jews in, e.g., Poland, Hungary, Russia, wherever, were usually not meaningfully different from foods cooked/consumed by non-Jews in those localities, except that the Jewish foods were changed to make them kosher.

You seem to be suggesting that we can simply say, "lots of Jews eat hummus and consider it 'Jewish food,' therefore hummus is 'Jewish food.'" Kasha, to use one of your examples, is a food that is consumed by millions of people who are not Jewish. In fact, many if not most of the people who regularly ate kasha 100 years ago (sadly, this may still be true today) were actively antisemitic. How could that possibly make kasha "Jewish food"?!

Now, chopped liver is a slightly different case. I could go along with the idea that chicken or beef liver and onions cooked in chicken fat then ground and mixed with chopped hard cooked eggs is "Jewish food." But it's also a fact that it's very similar to other, non-Jewish foods from Europe. This goes to one of your earlier queries as to "updating" and "reinterpreting" Jewish food. To what extent can chopped liver be changed before it is no longer "Jewish." The answer is that it can't be changed very much. The reason is because, if it changes too much, it just becomes like all the other myriad liver and other meat pates, mousses, spreads, etc. that are found throughout Europe. So, this makes it fairly difficult to update and reinterpret chopped liver and end up with something that is both meaningfully different and still seems like "Jewish food."

The difference between Jewish cooking and your example of China/Italy and the noodle (assuming that pasta did come to Europe from China, which seems to not be true) is that pasta cookery had hundreds of years to develop and evolve on its own in Italy, where it was, for all intents and purposes, completely separated from the influence of China and Chinese cooking. Italian pasta cookery and Chinese noodle cookery have almost nothing in common. Jewish cooking, on the other hand, developed, evolved, was influenced by and largely derived from the prevailing culture in which Jews lived. If 90% of the Jews in the world had lived in Israel for the last 500 years and had developed a unique and distinctive cuisine there, that would be more like Chinese, Italian, Indian, etc. food.

Nathan, that's interesting. I was unaware that Jewish identity and Judaism were different things. So by this definition, would a Korean person practicing Judaism not be Jewish? What is the difference in identity? Is it racial? -- I grew up in Japan so I'm completely new to all of this. I do know that Buddhism also has dietary restrictions though.

If a Thai meal is prepared in a Kosher manner, is it Jewish?

Chihiran, you might want to check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew

As to your question about the Thai meal, I think most people in America would say that it's Kosher Thai food, and not "Jewish food," per se. This is a source of some confusion, and part of the discussion here. What's interesting is that matzo ball soup in which butter was used to make the matzo balls (which would make the soup non-kosher, assuming they are in chicken broth) would likely be considered "Jewish food" by many.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

I'm coming at this question from a unique point of view.  I grew up in a kosher catering company, write kosher cookbooks and recipe columns and in the last few years I set up and am operating a speciality kosher food store.  From my experience, Jews do indeed eat kosher food.  And it's not just at the holidays (though there is certainly a bump at those times) - and its not just the kosher set.

I would point out, however, that "kosher" doesn't necessarily equal "distinctly/uniquely Jewish cuisine." Take a kosher chicken and roast it with potatoes and carrots. You've got a meal that most any observant Jew would eat. However, is this "Jewish food"? Millions of non-Jews who regularly cook the same thing (with or without using a kosher chicken) say "no."

We produce our own knishes, blintzes, kugels, kasha, kreplach and verenekes and a variety of other ashkenazie dishes - there is a demand for all of these items all year long.  Sure we have the 'kosher' customers, but we also have the young, double-income, assimilated couple who could care less if these items are kosher, but they want Jewish food.

We bring in lines of 'Jewish deli', Sabra and Shamir salads (hummus, matbucha, harissa, etc.), borekas and kibbeh that fly out the door.  Buckwheat, couscous, matzo meal and potato starch are stocked daily.  This is in a city that doesn't have a huge Jewish population

This illustrates part of the point I was making... Fried or baked dough stuffed with potato (knishes), crepes (blintzes), buckwheat groats (kasha), meat-stuffed pasta (kreplach), potato-stuffed pasta (verenekes), all the Middle Eastern dishes (hummus, matbucha, harissa, etc.) and many of the ingredients (buckwheat, couscous) are hardly "Jewish" in any intrinsic way. Some of them are simply not Jewish (being either Arabic or ubiquitous in the culture of origin), and many of the others are not necessarily recognizable as "Jewish" unless one is told beforehand (are kreplach in broth distinguishable from tortellini in brodo?).

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

I agree with Steven's point upthread that the important thing tying Jewish food together is more of a shared cultural experience (and, historically, adherence to Jewish dietary rules) rather than a uniquely devloped and distinct cuisine. I'm curious if anyone can point to "Jewish" dishes that are don't have a direct analogue in the non-Jewish culture from which they sprang. Below are some commonly cited examples of Jewish food which come to mind, together with the non-Jewish example in parentheses:

<blockquote>Chopped liver (countless non-Jewish liver and other meat pates)

Gefilte fish (pike and other fish quenelles)

Stuffed cabbage (not particularly Jewish in the "home culture")

Matzo ball soup (semolina dumpling soup)

Latkes (potato pancakes not uniquely Jewish)

Cholent (countless non-Jewish long-simmered stews)

Hummus (not particularly Jewish in the "home culture")

Kibbeh (not particularly Jewish in the "home culture")

Brisket (Jewish preparations don't seem particularly unique/distinctive)

Flanken (Jewish preparations don't seem particularly unique/distinctive)

Blintzes (crepes, crespelle, etc.)

Kreplach (ravioli, tortellini, pelmeni, pierogi, vareniki, etc.)

Kasha (not distinctively Jewish in the "home culture")

Corned beef (salted beef is ubiquitous to most beef-eating cultures)

Pastrami (similarly spiced meats -- sheep, pork, etc. -- ubiquitous in Romania)

Kugel (all the various types have direct anologues in the "home culture" -- e.g., lasagne al forno, mac and cheese, etc.)</blockquote>

Of these, I can see a good argument for pastrami in America growing into a uniquely and distinctively Jewish food, and some individual kugel recipes seem fairly distinctive (although, of course, a noodle or potato casserole is hardly unique). I'm just trying to think of Jewish foods that would seem foreign on the table of a non-Jew in the "home culture" where the Jewish dish originated. For example, we all think of matzo ball soup as being "Jewish" -- and yet, when I spent a summer in Salzburg, I was often fed a lunch of semolina dumplings, which have the same, slightly granular texture as matzo balls, in chicken broth. Can anyone make the case for foods/dishes that are uniquely and distinctively Jewish, to the extent that they could be changed/reinterpreted and still keep their "Jewish food-ness" to the extent that this has happened with, e.g., Italian or French dishes?

I wonder if part of the reason we associate these (mostly Ashkenazi, for reasons Steven explained above) recipes with "Jewish food" in America is that religious Jews here tended to preserve their "old country" culinary traditions and other cultural identifiers far more than other immigrant cultures, which have tended to assimilate (and disseminate their culinary traditions) far more. This may be related to the fact that Jews have historically been separated from their "home cultures" to one degree or another, partly through their own choice and partly because of various persecutions and discriminations. So, to return back to an earlier example, whereas many of the German and Austrian immigrants may have given up their culinary tradition of semolina dumplings in chicken broth in favor of keeping the sausages and beer, Jewish immigrants kept their matzo ball soup and this dish became "Jewish food" to most Americans, rather than "the Jewish version of the same dish everyone in town is making -- which is most likely what it originally was."

To follow-up on one of savethedeli's questions, this makes it hard to step out of the box and "reinterpret" too much without ending up with a dish that is more "reinterpreted Eastern European" than "reinterpreted Jewish." So, for example, what makes the Tabla soup Steven describes "Jewish" is the fact that matzoh is used in the dumplings. If he served the same dish in May with semolina dumplings, it suddenly wouldn't seem so "Jewish" anymore.

To go even further back, to the main premise of this thread: given the somewhat narrow confines of what makes us think of many of these foods as "Jewish" in America, and given the fact that most of these foods come from Eastern European culinary traditions that are increasingly unpopular (for reasons Steven has outlined well) here, and especially given the fact that these dishes as we know them come from Eastern European culinary traditions of a hundred or more years ago (which makes them all the more out of touch with current American culinary trends and preferences) conbined with the fact that it's difficult to change these dishes too much without most people feeling like they have "lost their Jewishness" -- well, that equals less eating of "Jewish food" in America. In fact, even observant Jews who live in America are likely trending their culinary preparations and eating habits away from what most Americans would associate with "Jewish food" -- they're just doing so within the confines of Jewish dietary restrictions. So, really, when we ask "why aren't people eating as much Jewish food today?" we're really asking "why aren't people eating as much Jewish versions of heavy, 19th century Eastern European food today?"

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

From others, I'm getting a lot along the lines of "That isn't Jewish".  What then should define Jewish food?

Kashrut.

I have yet to see a convincing argument that there is anything distinctively different about, e.g., traditional Ashkenazi cooking and traditional non-Jewish cooking of Eastern Europe other than the fact that the Ashkenazi cooking is kosher.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

Would anyone eating that Robuchon dish think it was "reinterpreted Jewish cooking"? What's "Jewish" about it other than the pastrami? I got the impression the dish was more "New York-inspired" than "reinterpreted Jewish." I've had skate stuffed with pastrami and a mustard emulsion at Oceana. Is that "reinterpreted Jewish"?

[(Not So) Simple, Flavored, & Spiced Syrups]

I keep meaning to make more, but the only place in Seattle where I've found gum arabic is completely on the other side of town, and they always seem to be closed when I'm in the neighborhood.

Order some from these guys.

[(Not So) Simple, Flavored, & Spiced Syrups]

Haven't done much testing. I'll be bringing samples to my friends in Pegu, D&C and elsewhere to see what they think.

No troubles using it or getting it to dissolve.

It's not a small amount of effort, so it's hard to say whether it's worth it -- or, rather, to what extent it's worth it. I think I've detected increased silkyness in the cocktails I've made using gomme syrup, but am reluctant to say this is for sure true until I've done side-by-side testing.

[(Not So) Simple, Flavored, & Spiced Syrups]

I have made two batches of gomme syrup with gum arabic, according to Dave's instructions I posted above, one white sugar and one demerara sugar. I have yet to do any definitive s-de-by-side testing, but it's noticably thicker and more viscous compared to regular simple syrup with the same sweetening power -- so much so that it won't really flow through a speed pourer at room temperature.

[A skilled amateur cook]

I'm with Dave. I think it's possible for someone to be an extremely advanced home (or even professional) home cook and not be particularly skilled at pastry and baking.

[Why don't Jews eat Jewish?]

because most of it is a subset of regional cuisines.

i.e. see the justly famous Jewish cuisine of Rome...it is seen as a particular subset of the cooking of Lazio...

I completely agree, but the variations created by dietary restrictions created a stye and taste all its own. Pastrami may have come from Turkish preservation and Romanian cured pork, but the brisket and navel stuff is a world apart.

Why aren't there Jewish restaurants in NY, LA, Montreal, Chicago that serve the food from different regions you talk about? Why aren't there Jewish chefs who focus on reinterpreting kugels or kibbeh or rice pudding?

There are. For example, there is a NYC family that owns two Italian restaurants specializing in the Jewish cooking of Rome: Tevere, a meat restaurant, and Va Bene, a dairy restaurant.

Most likely there are several reasons there aren't lots of restaurants doing Jewish foods.

First of all, it's not always the case that the Kosher food of a city or culture is so distinctly different that it would be worth having a restaurant dedicated to this cuisine. For example, despite the proud tradition of Roman Jewish cooking, it's not so distinct from regular Roman cooking that most Americans could tell the difference. So, more likely one is likely to find a few of the well known, unique dishes scattered around on Italian restaurant menus. A good example would be artichokes fanned out and deep fried in extra virgin olive oil, otherwise known as carciofi alla giudia. For this reason, as Nathan points out, the Jewish cooking is likely to be seen simply as part of that national cuisine.

The second reason is that... well, once you can find something that would be identifiable as"distinctly Jewish" (and I would argue that kibbeh and rice pudding don't come close to passing this test) to most Americans... a lot of it is not terribly interesting. Why would anyone want to reinterpret a typical Ashkenazi kugel? How could it possibly be reinterpreted to much that anyone would pay money for it in a restaurant?

Third, unless part of the "reinterpretation" includes sticking to the rules of kashrut, how much can many of these dishes evolve before they're not so "Jewish" anymore? How much could e.g., a noodle kugel be reinterpreted before most everyone would see it as being more of a variation on "mac & cheese"? How much can gefilte fish be reinterpreted before it becomes simply a fish quenelle? So, at some point one is left with the idea of doing, e.g., Eastern European peasant cooking that adheres to Jewish dietary laws. Meh. Not that interesting. And, more to the point, it's been done... for centuries.

I would argue, by the way, that Jews do eat "Jewish food" -- or, rather, the ones who are observant do. And they eat the same kind of "Jewish food" that Jews have eaten over thousands of years, which is to say: more or less the local cooking tailored and changed a little to adhere to kashrut.

[Saute versus Fry Pans]

Yea, I touch on this in a related thread:

Sauté is more complicated, and one of my pet peeves in the culinary world.

The French word sauté is the past participle of the verb sauter, meaning "to jump."  Thus, something that is sauté is "jumped."  Where is it jumped?  Around in the pan.  So, for example, if you have poulet sauté, you have "jumped chicken" ("sautéed chicken," in restaurant-speak).  Other languages, such as Italian, take this one step further and will often say saltato in padella, meaning "jumped around in the pan."  This means that when we sauté (the French past participle having turned into an English verb), the food items are regularly agitated ("jumped") around in a large, flat pan so that all sides are browned.

Some people will suggest that one can sauté without moving the food around in the pan, and that the "jumped" part means that the pan is "so hot the food will jump up" when it touches the pan.  This doesn't withstand too much scrutiny.  First of all, the typical preparation that most of these people would call "sautéed fillet of snapper" or whatever isn't done over particularly high heat.  Second, a sauté pan is not particularly useful for this kind of cooking.  A sauté pan is, however, very useful when you would like to shake the pan back and forth over the burner and bounce the food around in the pan.

No, this other thing where you let the food sit in the pan, is frying, not sautéing.  Otherwise, it would be a "sautéed egg" instead of a "fried egg."  Nevertheless, it is true that in English usage, "sautéed" is commonly used as a stand-in for "fried" -- even among the kitchen staff.  This is for a lot of reasons. . .  Primarily I believe it is because "sautéed" sounds lighter, more healthful and more desirable than "fried," which is often incorrectly believed to imply cooking food that is partially or entirely sumberged in hot fat (this would have been called "boiling in oil" back in the old days).  And also perhaps because some professional kitchens operating under a brigade system call the position in charge of most stovetop cooking the "sauté station" -- despite the fact that this station does more frying than sautéing.  This is likely because this station is often considered the highest station under the sous-chef, which "rank" was previously occupied by the saucier (who was in charge of making sauces and stews as well as... you guessed it, sautéing food to order).  In any event, it is a fact that "sautéed fillet of snapper" would have meaning to most professional cooks, despite not actually being correct usage.  Notwithstanding the foregoing, however, it is correctly called a "fried fillet of snapper."

Yet another complication is that there are often dishes called "a sauté of mushrooms" or whatever.  These dishes typically involve sautéing as one step of the preparation process, but most often include other techniques.  For example, mushrooms might be briefly sautéed in hot fat, then some rich stock is added to the pan and the mushrooms are then braised for a while in the stock, after which time some butter and herbs might be added to create a sauce from the remaining liquid, and the whole thing called a "sauté of mushrooms" or "mushroom sauté."

As I say in the quote above, my experience is that there are plenty of things called "sauté" on both menus and inside kitchens that are neither tossed around the pan nor cooked over particularly high heat -- thus failing on any of the common definitions of "sauté." Again, I have no idea how "frying" came to be associated with a fairly deep layer of oil.

This distinction is neither here nor there, of course, when it comes to actual cooking -- so long as all the cooks in the kitchen have a common understanding of what it means. But it becomes more important when discussing cookware design, and particularly the sauté pan, which is designed to facilitate the constantly moving ("jumped") cooking technique I describe above. Someone who purchases a sauté pan thinking it is optimized for some of the other techniques (mis)-labeled "sautéing" will find that the sauté pan is a poor fit.

[Saute versus Fry Pans]

It's a fact that very few (Western) home cooks do any real sautéing, which involves movinjg the food items around almost constantly. This is compounded by the fact that most home stoves are underpowered for this high heat cooking task, and brecause most home cooks put way more food in the pan than the burner can handle.

It is also true that a lot of home cooks confuse the sautéing with frying. If the food is just sitting on the heat and not moving around, it is frying, not sautéing. So, for example, cnspriggs: What you want to do with onions isn't really sautéing. If you were to sauté onions, you'd move chunks of onion around and around in a hot pan until they were evenly browned on all sides. In order to get the deep, dark browning and Maillardization you want, the onions have to cook for a much longer time at a lower heat setting. Similarly, when paulraphael speaks of the difficulty in reaching in to a sauté to turn pieces of food, he is using a technique that is not sautéing. Sauté pans are designed with straight sides so that the cook can throw in the chunks of food and vigorously shake the pan back and forth on the burner grate, bouncing the food items off the straight walls of the pan back onto the cooking surface.

Paul does have a point that some "frypans" are perfectly fine for sautéing tasks. This is because the sides are tall enough and the slope is steep enough that food items are unlikely to slide out when one shakes the pan (although this can still happen if you shake the pan too hard). Unfortunately, the "taller, steeper" design makes these pans less than optimal for frying. The whole point of a frypan design is to facilitate frying: cooking flat pieces of food in a small amount of hot fat, not moving them around much (usually) with the goal of getting a crispy surface. Low, sloped sides are useful for this because they offer easy access to a spatula for turning and, mostly, because they facilitate efficient evaporation of liquid (the sizzling sound is water coming out of the food and boiling on the surface of the pan) which produces a crisp surface. The "taller, steeper" frypans are not so great for the spatula access and evaporation, and are closer to what I might call a "slope-sided" or "curved sauté pan" than a "frypan." I have a classic frypan design from Mauviel -- the sides are quite short and widely flared. It's quite easy to shake food right out the back of the pan, and one must resort to the "flipping" technique.

As Paul and Blether point out, however, there are plenty of things a sauté pan is useful for besides sautéing. They're great for doing little braises, for "shallow frying" (more accurately called "boiling in oil"), for making quick pasta sauces and finishing the pasta together in the pan with the sauce, etc. If you're someone who does some sautéing, but realistically not all that much, but who would like to benefit from the added functionality of a sauté pan, I very much recommend a curved sauteuse evasée -- called variously a curved sauteuse, saucière, sauteuse bombée, saucier, chef's pan, flared sauté pan, curved sauté pan (although these last two sometimes have shorter sides), etc. Both Falk and Bourgeat make excellent examples of this pan in stainless lined heavy copper.