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Eat the Way Home: Personal Anecdotes on Jewish Cooking and Traditions

Ariella Frenkel RISD'25

Updated: Jan 30

I was born in Santa Monica, California on July 30th, 2003. I came into the world two weeks early and was greeted by my Mom, Dad, Grandma, and my Godparents. The first thing I consumed was breastmilk, which eventually turned into organic formula and solid food when I was old enough. My Mom told me that the first adult food I tried and enjoyed was a sweet potato in New Zealand (Kūmara) when I was five months old. Later on, at eight months old, I tried lentil soup and loved that too. Growing up, I was never really a picky eater. However, I did have some odd preferences. I loved lemons as a baby, and I still do to this day. As I grew older and more experienced in my food-related likes and dislikes, I solidified my budding palate and vowed to never shut myself off from new foods and experiences. There is a specific phrase, “food is love,” which is universally true in almost all cultures. The concept of cooking for those that you love is prevalent throughout ancient and modern Jewish civilization. In my immediate family, elaborate and thoughtful dishes are often served on important Jewish holidays and Simchas (celebrations). Weekly Shabbat dinners were a constant within my family while I lived at home in the Bay Area, and this tradition continues to this day. I always find time to call home to receive the Shabbat Blessing from my parents each Friday regardless of where I am or who I am with. 

Shabbat dinner has been an integral part of Jewish life for thousands of years. In my own family, Shabbat dinners are filled with delicious home-cooked meals and boisterous conversation with our guests of the week. The table is usually crammed with extra seats to accommodate as many beloved family members and friends as possible, and my family’s dog faithfully waits under the table, nudging legs every so often to encourage table-feeding. My mom typically made the Shabbat meal throughout my childhood, and we always set the table nicely with fancy linens. One dish that remains constant each week my family celebrates Shabbat is my mom’s challah, which is an Ashkenazi Jewish braided brioche-style bread that calls for oil instead of butter to keep it parve. She adapted her recipe from her friend Sarit, who also enjoyed making homemade challah. My mom bakes it at home every week, and this ritual consists of her kneading the dough with good intentions for those who need a little extra love and healing in their lives. She chants, “One over, two down the middle” as she braids the dough to remember the complex order in which she places each strand. Before she assembles the braid, chunks of dried fruit or chocolate are folded in as she kneads the dough. These special additions align with specific holidays and birthdays that my mom likes to celebrate through cooking and baking related dishes. For example, she throws yearly Halloween Shabbats and Valentine's Day Shabbats alongside Purim Shabbats and Birthday Shabbats. 


On Halloween Shabbat, my family typically hosts a few other families all in costume, and the corresponding Challah that my mom bakes usually has some sort of candy folded into it. Birthday Shabbats usually also included a sweet challah topped with frosting and sprinkles, which made it more of a dessert than just a loaf of bread. Valentine’s Day Shabbat has a similar sweet challah to both Halloween and Birthday Shabbats, but Valentine’s Day challah is probably her best one. Valentine’s Day usually falls during RISD’s February break, which means I get to be home to experience the magic of this special challah. The night before she bakes it, we run to the grocery store and pick up Toblerone bars, which this notorious challah recipe calls for. The melted, nutty chocolate mixed with the slightly sweet bread is always a perfect combination, and I feel lucky to have it whenever I come home before the Spring semester starts. My mom picked up baking challah from scratch during the pandemic, and my dad started baking sourdough each week then as well. They both love adding fruit and chocolate to their individual styles of bread, and I have brought a loaf from each of them back to Providence on multiple occasions. 


1. Sarit’s Challah (Andi’s Version)





My Mom’s additional notes: Combine the yeast and one-quarter to one-third cup sugar in a small bowl. Add one cup of hot water & whisk it together. Let the yeast bloom for ten minutes. In a big mixing bowl, beat the eggs, oil, and salt while the yeast blooms. When the yeast is nice and frothy, add flour to the mixing bowl with the oil and salt, then add in the yeast. Mix it in the electronic mixer for five minutes. Take the ball of dough out and knead it by hand for a few minutes adding prayers, saying this is “for the merit of/in honor of (insert name of loved one),” or for those in need of healing (emotional or physical), or congratulations for someone having something beautiful happen like a bar mitzvah, wedding, or graduation. Pray for peace and love. 


Depending on the food my mom was cooking for Shabbat dinner, aside from the challah, the table was set with either one of our two primary sets of dishes and silverware. The reasoning behind this dining set-up is my family’s keeping of Kashrut, the set of dietary laws that deem what is kosher and what is not within the wide world of food options. My family has two sets of dishes, one for meat and one for dairy, in order to adhere to the standards of kosher food preparation and consumption. The laws of Kashrut call for only a specific set of mammals, birds, and fish to be consumed based on the shared characteristics that make them Kosher within each group of animals. Dairy and Pareve (non-meat and non-dairy) food items can also be deemed Kosher as well, and it is prohibited within the laws of Kashrut to mix meat and dairy in any context. This originated from when G-d gives Moses laws in the Torah, stating that “You are not to boil a kid in the milk of its mother” (The Five Books of Moses, Exodus 23:19). For meat from mammals to be Kosher, it has to be from an animal with both split hooves and the ability to chew its cud. Cud is partially digested food that travels back from an animal’s first stomach to its mouth for further chewing. Kosher animals also have to be slaughtered in a very certain way. This method of ritual slaughtering is known as Shechita, and it requires the animal to be slaughtered with a quick cut to the neck that is meant to serve as a relatively fast and painless death by exsanguination. The animal is then bled out completely, as the consumption of blood is prohibited by the laws of Kashrut as well. This is achieved through repeatedly soaking and salting the meat until all of the blood is removed. The resulting kosher meat is typically saltier than non-kosher meat, but as someone who grew up on it, I do not notice a difference in taste. Kosher meat can only be prepared and served with utensils and equipment solely dedicated to meat meals, which is why my family has separate plates, bowls, and silverware for both dairy and meat. 

Dairy, on the other hand, has a whole other set of specifications that grant it kosher status. First of all, any kosher dairy product must come from a kosher animal. Secondly, kosher dairy products cannot be mixed with any meat-based derivatives such as gelatin or rennet. Lastly, for any dairy product to be considered kosher, it must not have been prepared or served with any utensils or equipment used to process meat in the past. Families that follow Kashrut strictly often take their kitchenware to a Mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath where they can be purified through repetitive dunking in a natural water source. Some that adhere to the laws of Kashrut also have separate fridges, freezers, and sinks for storing and washing their meat and dairy separately. 


Other laws of Kashrut define what foods are deemed parve, which allows them to be mixed with both meat and dairy products separately without penalty. Pareve foods consist of Kosher fish, eggs from Kosher fowl, grains, produce, nuts, beans, legumes, and vegetable oils. For a fish or any water-dwelling creature to be considered Kosher, it has to have both fins and scales. This rule means that shellfish and other select fish are not considered kosher. Unlike kosher meat and dairy, cooking and preparing fish in a Kosher kitchen can be done with either set of utensils due to its parve nature. The same applies to eggs and all other pareve food items, but eggs have to be individually checked for any blood spots. They are only considered kosher if no blood is found, due to the prohibition of the consumption of any sort of blood in the Torah. 


Growing up, I remember my Mom always checking each egg as she cracked it, and due to the more casual nature of our adherence to the laws of Kashrut, my mom and I would always scoop out the specks of blood from the yolk with the leftover jagged bits of shell. To this day, I still do check for blood whenever I cook or bake with eggs even though my personal cooking habits in college less strictly follow Kashrut. Even now, when I think about the future that lies ahead of me, I imagine some form of Kashrut being a part of my home. While it does not seem attainable in college, I feel that I want to honor my upbringing by keeping the tradition alive as my parents did for me. Having a kosher home never felt restrictive for me growing up, partially because we kept a kosher home, but did not always keep kosher outside of the house. This made eating meat meals and dairy meals special and also meant that outside of the house, I would get to try non-kosher things like shellfish and cheeseburgers if I wanted to. My parents and I sometimes enjoy eating non-kosher foods outside of the house, but my younger brother always keeps kosher. My family practices having a kosher home to honor an ancient Jewish law and keep our home open to any Jew that steps foot through our doors, regardless of their level of religious adherence. Judaism is an incredibly community-based faith and culture, and the addition of a Kosher home allows for any Jewish person to safely dine with our family, staying true to the Jewish mitzvah of welcoming community members and even strangers into one’s home to make sure that all have food to eat. 


Both of my parents tell me they grew up observing Jewish food traditions and customs in their homes just like we did, but my Dad’s family was less strict than my Mom’s, who kept kosher in and outside the house. My parents were both coincidentally born in the same suburb outside of Detroit called Farmington Hills, though they only met later in Los Angeles. My Mom’s family stayed there throughout her childhood and young adulthood, but my Dad’s family moved away to the Atlanta area when he was eleven and then to Roswell, Georgia a few years later. Like my mom, his mom did a lot of cooking for the family, inspired by her own multicultural upbringing as an American Jew in the South. My Dad’s mom, my Grandma Nancy, was born in Anderson, South Carolina. My dad fondly recalls her making two different pies for Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashana or Sukkot, and for Thanksgiving as well. One of the pies was “Derby Pie” and the other “Numbers Pie.” Derby Pie has an extensive history tied to the Kern family in their years managing the Melrose Inn restaurant in Oldham County, Kentucky until it closed in 2000. They trademarked the pie’s name, “Derby Pie,” and other restaurants and establishments cannot sell the pie if it is not the official Kern version that they still make to this day. Derby Pie is a nutty, chocolate pie that is incredibly sweet and rich. My dad has mastered his Mom’s recipe for Derby Pie, and he continues to make it for Rosh Hashanah and Thanksgiving. Their Southern Jewish roots continue to shine through the recipes he grew up with, including those that he baked as I was growing up too. Number’s Pie, another sweet chocolate pie, is an original recipe that gets its name because each listed ingredient had a certain number which made them easy to remember. Like Derby Pie, Numbers Pie was served in my Dad’s family on special occasions and Jewish holidays, just like how my family cooks certain dishes for specific Jewish events throughout the year.


2. Grandma Nancy’s Derby Pie 





3. Grandma Nancy’s Number’s Pie 






While my Dad grew up in the South, my Mom grew up in the Midwest. Her family observed the laws of Kashrut as she grew up, and as a result, the cultural influence in her cooking is definitely more Jewish than anything. She was a relatively picky eater growing up but opened up her palate to new foods when she met my Dad. Both sides of my family are Ashkenazi Jewish, and my relatives immigrated to America in the mid to late 1800s due to Pogroms and rising antisemitism in Eastern Europe. Some members of my Dad’s side of the family stayed in Eastern Europe and were horrifically murdered during the Holocaust. In some ways, I believe my family’s love of Jewish cooking ties back to a need to preserve and celebrate Jewish culture because it was so inhumanely ripped from us in the past. The fact that many Jewish recipes have ties to ancient times goes to show that we cannot be forced to disappear. 


My favorite recipe from my Mom’s side of the family is my Gamah Charlotte’s Noodle Kugel (my younger brother and I could not pronounce “Grandma,” so thus Gamah was born). The recipe originates from Central and Eastern Europe, where leftover bread was mixed with fat and eggs to make a casserole of sorts. Kugel, also known as lokshen (noodle) kugel, only evolved into what we know it as today around eight hundred years ago when Jews making it in Germany began to replace the leftover bread with noodles. Other types of kugel, such as savory potato kugel, are served during the Jewish holiday of Passover when many Jews refrain from consuming leavened wheat and various grains as they keep Kosher for Passover. My late Gamah’s Kugel recipe was my favorite dish growing up, and I always ask my mom to make it for my birthday whenever I come home from college. Last spring, I made kugel for the first time on my own and subsequently proved to myself that I was capable of replicating a recipe that I truly adored. My version tasted exactly like the ones that my mom had been making my entire life, and that moment was truly celebratory for me. My joy associated with this recipe increased further when I brought it to class for my turn to share a culturally significant dish. The course, titled Eat the Way Home, required that each student cook a dish from their culture for the whole class, and I felt great pride when mine was devoured by my classmates and peers. 


4. Gamah Charlotte’s Noodle Kugel 





The class Kugel, looking devoured. 


My own additional notes: I adapted the recipe so it would be enough for the entire class, which consisted of around fifteen people. Here are my altered measurements: 


* 1 ½ lbs noodles (bag + ½, but I ended up adding 2 whole bags just because I felt like it.)

12 oz CC (box + ½, and I wrote it as “CC” because my co-workers and I use that abbreviation to shorten “cream cheese” as we take orders at Carr Haus Cafe.) 1 ½ lbs butter (3 sticks) 

* 27 oz jam (jar + ½) 

* 6 eggs 

* a little less than ½ cup of milk (⅜ cup) 

* 6 cups cornflakes 

* a little less than ½ cup of sugar (⅜ cup) 

* cinnamon to taste 


I find that there is a great correlation between my relationship with joy and my relationship with Jewish cooking. One of my favorite Jewish holidays is Passover, which is a holiday that commemorates our painful ancient history of enslavement by the Egyptians, as well as our freedom through the Exodus to the Promised Land. The Passover meal, otherwise known as a seder, is a significant meal for Jews worldwide. The word seder, which is transliterated from Hebrew like many other common Jewish words, directly translates to “order.” The Passover Seder is just that; a long, elaborate meal filled with rich cultural history and reflections on our past, present, and future as the Jewish people. The seder revolves around the seder plate, a large, circular plate with individual divots for each symbolic food. The plate usually contains six or seven items which each correspond to different parts of the Passover story. Matzo, which is arguably the most integral part of the Passover story, is also arranged on the table in a stack. Matzo is known as the bread of affliction and is said to have been created as an accident when the Jews began their Exodus from Egypt. As they were fleeing from the Pharaoh and his army, there was not enough time for their dough to rise and become bread, and thus matzo was formed. Alongside the items on the seder plate and the table, extravagant Kosher-for-Passover dishes are served as well. Dishes such as potato kugel, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, tzimmes, and brisket are most notably present at Ashkenazi seders. 


I grew up attending Seder in Los Angeles at Laurie Levenson’s house, a Law Professor at Loyola Marymount University. She connected with my parents after they had both finished undergraduate programs at the University of Michigan all while never meeting one another. After Michigan, my Mom headed to the University of Maryland, Baltimore to earn her Master's Degree in Modern Jewish History and Social Work, and my Dad headed to MIT to earn his Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering. After both of them respectively studied and worked in Maryland and Massachusetts, my parents both moved to Los Angeles, California for separate reasons. My Mom ended up as the Program Director of UCLA Hillel while my Dad was studying Law at LMU. One of his Law Professors was Laurie Levenson, and she started inviting him to her yearly seder because he was her favorite student. My Mom met Laurie through their connections at UCLA Hillel, which Laurie served on the board of. My parents almost met through Laurie, as she claimed she was planning to introduce them, but instead met on the Jewish dating platform “J-Date.” 


As soon as they got together, my family’s place at Laurie’s seder was solidified, and we have gone ever since. Unfortunately, my family has gone without me for the past three years because of college scheduling conflicts. This change has been hard for me to adapt to because College Hill seders never amount to the spectacle of Laurie’s elaborate ones. She is notorious for renting camels and usually has some type of petting zoo each year for the young children in attendance. Laurie and her family are incredibly generous, and host upwards of sixty friends and family in their house each Passover. They also invite members from the outside community, whether Jewish or not. Her seders align with the Mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim, which translates to welcoming and honoring guests into one’s home. 

One year at Laurie’s Passover Seder, I got to pet a baby zebra. The next year, I got to hold a baby goat. Year after year, the camels remained a constant as an homage to our people’s time in the desert as we fled Egypt. While the animals might be the most memorable part of her Seder, massive political Pharaoh posters with recognizable faces like Putin, Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Musk, and many more line the walls of her home to remind us of the Pharaohs of our lifetimes. Laurie’s Passover feast always comes to mind when I eat sad brisket and squash at Brown-RISD Hillel’s seder. That seder has grown on me over the three years that I have attended it, but nothing amounts to the home-cooked Passover dishes and unique ambiance that make up Laurie’s seder. Mrs. Nassi’s fish and Laurie’s brisket recipe were always the stars of the show. My mom got the recipe from Laurie years ago and has since made this brisket religiously for Shabbat, Rosh HaShanah, Chanukah, and any other special event or occasion, Jewish or not. She always makes extra and freezes the leftovers, and she promises each time to have some ready for me whenever I come home. This tradition of freezing and defrosting her brisket in alignment with my time spent at home shows me just how much my entire family loves me, and further solidifies my love of Jewish cooking and its emotion-based qualities. 


5. Laurie Levonson’s Brisket Recipe, most often cooked by my Mom

 

* 6-7 lbs 1st cut Kosher Brisket 

* Two jars of 18-oz Manischewitz Concord Grape Jelly 

* 2 cans of Vernor’s Ginger Ale

* One bottle of organic ketchup 

* 2-3 sweet onions 

* One big roasting pan 

Preheat the oven to 250 °F. Sliced the onions into rings and make sure the whole pan is filled so it serves as a bed for the meat. Place the raw meat in the pan fat-side up. Pour the first can of ginger ale onto the meat. Spoon the grape jelly on the brisket. Squirt ketchup on the brisket, using the same amount as grape jelly. Pour the second can of ginger ale on top of the meat. Cover the roasting pan and roast for four hours. Every hour use a baster and baste some of the juice onto the meat. After four hours, take the brisket out and use an electric knife if you have it. Slice against the grain in ¼ - ⅓ inch slices, put back into the sauce, and cover with foil. Let it cool and then refrigerate. Reheat the brisket when ready to serve for dinner. 


While Laurie’s brisket recipe serves as a reminder of how my parents got together, as well as their shared way of expressing love through cooking, they also share another Passover dish in common. This dish, known as matzo brei, appeared throughout both of my parent’s separate childhoods. On my dad’s side, his mom cooked matzo brei by scrambling it. On my mom’s side, they cooked it in a pan almost similar to a frittata or a large matzo-egg pancake. Matzo Brei as I have known it has been both versions. Whenever my younger brother and I would have Passover off, we would attend Laurie’s seder in Los Angeles first, and then usually visit our cousins in New York or my dad’s parents in Georgia. When we would visit our Grandma Nancy during Passover while she was still alive, I remember her always making matzo brei the scrambled way, as opposed to the cake-like version that my mom typically made. This Passover, I decided to make matzo brei for a good friend of mine. We recently became friends this year because of a shared need for a Jewish community as our community at RISD grew more extremist. I invited her over for dinner and began to cook the dish as she sat crammed in the small kitchen I shared with my roommates. My friend had a similar Jewish upbringing to mine in some ways, and very different in others. She told me that she had never tried matzoh brei before as I stood by the stove, carefully watching our matzoh brei to ensure it did not burn. She helped me flip it, and we chatted as the kitchen filled with smells that reminded me of home and community. After frying on the stovetop, I placed the matzoh brei in the oven to finish baking. Matzo Brei is an Ashkenazi-Jewish Passover dish that originated from diaspora communities in North America, and once cooked, it is usually topped with sour cream and a jam or syrup of sorts. My friend and I topped our slices with sour cream and cherry jam, and we began our meal. 


6. My Mom’s Matzo Brei 

* 6 eggs 

* 6 pieces of matzoh 

* 2 sticks of butter 

* a splash of milk 

Melt a stick of butter in a big frying pan. Beat the eggs with a splash of milk. Wet the matzoh as you’re breaking it into small pieces. Once the butter has melted, put the wet pieces of matzoh directly into the pan, and then pour the beaten eggs over it. They should be mostly covered by the egg mixture. Turn the temperature to medium and use a spatula to make sure the sides don’t stick to the pan (you want it to look like one big matzo pancake). Once the whole mixture has a golden crust around the sides and on the bottom (use your spatula to check and see), use a big plate or a tray to flip and remove the matzoh brei from the pan. Melt the other stick of butter in the frying pan and then slide the matzo cake back into the pan, raw side down. After that gets crispy, it still should be soft in the middle. Take it off the stove, put it on a baking sheet, or keep it in your oven-safe frying pan and bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until it is no longer gooey inside. Remove from the pan when done and cut into 6 portions. Serve hot. 


There is something special about cooking for others that you consider friends and family. My friend and I have grown our friendship over the last couple of months through cooking for one another and sharing anecdotes about being Jewish on RISD’s campus in times like these. Being a Jewish student at this university has not been easy for either of us, and I am disappointed but not surprised that we both have experienced more direct antisemitism this year than ever before. As tides shift amidst wars thousands of miles away and tensions rise in the cities and educational systems that I call home, I am reminded of the strength of my Jewish roots. My people are resilient, and we have already survived millennia. We will survive many more if we continue to deepen our connections in our communities through sharing traditions and stories, and of course, through cooking each other Jewish food. These Jewish rituals will never change, just like I will never stop yearning for the tastes of my parents’ cultural dishes that bind our family together. Their histories, and the histories of those that came before them, will always influence and guide me on my journey as I work on creating Jewish recipes of my own for future generations to remember fondly. The cycle will continue as it always has, and I am truthfully glad to be a part of it. Memories of those we love are indeed often found in stories, but I am confident that they are even more strongly found within cherished family recipes. I believe in the common saying, “the key to someone’s heart is through their stomach.” May we all get the chance to be loved and remembered for our dishes and recipes long after we stop cooking them ourselves.



Works Cited 

Everett Fox. “The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (The Schocken Bible, Vol. 1),” Exodus 23:19, W Pub Group, 1996 


“Our Story - History of Derby-Pie®.” Kern’s Kitchen, derbypie.com/pages/our-story.

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