THE JEWS
The wanderings of the Children of Israel since Bible times have made them an International Race. They are known to all countries, and have adapted themselves to different climates and products. Because of these conditions, they have a more varied dietary than any other people. They have acquired the use of Russian, Polish, German, Spanish, and Italian foods, and have adapted them to their dietary laws.
It is essential that the Jewish dietary laws be understood, at least in general, by all who attempt medical or social work among orthodox Jews. From an article by Mrs. Mary L. Schapiro the following account is quoted of those dietary laws "that are now regarded as essential."[1]
I. PROHIBITED FOODS
Prohibition of Animal Foods. Absolute and partial prohibitions:
Unclean animals are absolutely prohibited. Clean animals are all quadrupeds that chew a cud and also divided the hoof. All others are regarded as not clean.
Products of animals that are suffering from some malady or that have died a natural death or had eaten poison are regarded as "terefah," unclean, and may not be used.
All animal foods which are not obtained by killing in the prescribed manner and after adequate inspection by a duly authorized official may not be used.
Blood was regarded by the ancient Hebrews, and is by many primitive peoples today, as the vital part of the animal which must be given back to God. Fish does not come under this category, possibly because it is a cold-blooded animal.
Fish that have fins and scales—none other—may be eaten. This would bar all shellfish, such as oysters or lobsters, as well as fish of the eel variety. There seems to have been some good dietetic reason for this, as the Eastern waters were doubtless often polluted, and there may have been cases of poisoning resulting from mistaking poisonous water snakes for eels.
No scavengers or birds of prey are to be eaten. These are regarded as unclean.
The suet of ox, sheep, or goat is forbidden (not the fat). Fat of birds or permitted wild animals is not forbidden.
An egg yolk with a drop of blood on it is considered as an embryo chick, and is forbidden.
II. PRESCRIBED MODES OF PREPARING FOOD
The following partial prohibitions are fully as important as the above:
After the proper cut of meat is secured from the proper kind of animal which has been slaughtered in accordance with Jewish Law, it is to be soaked half an hour to soften the fiber and enable the juice or blood to escape more readily when salted. (The pan used for this purpose may not be used for anything else.) The meat is then thoroughly salted, placed on a board which is either perforated or fluted, and placed in an oblique position, so as to enable the blood to drain off. It is allowed to remain thus for one hour, after which time it is to be washed three times. The washing is for the purpose of removing all the salt. This process is called Koshern and is regarded as very important.
Bones with no meat and fat adhering to them must be soaked separately, and during the salting should not be placed near the meat.
Chops and steaks may be broiled.
The heart may be used, but must be cut open lengthwise, and the tip removed before soaking. This enables the blood to flow out more freely. Lungs are treated as is the heart. Milt must have veins removed. The head and feet may be koshered, with the hair or skin adhering to them. The head must have the brain removed. This latter is used, but must be koshered separately.
To kosher fat for clarifying, remove the skin and proceed as with meat.
In preparing poultry, it must be drawn and the insides removed before putting into the water. The claws must be cut off before koshering. The head must be cut off. The skin of the neck must be either turned back or cut, so that the vein lying between two tendons may be removed.
Seething a kid in its mother's milk is forbidden. This is the origin of the prohibition against the cooking of meat and milk together, or of the eating of such mixtures. This rule is rigidly adhered to, and in its present application necessitates the use of a complete double equipment of dishes and utensils. Since this rule is regarded as one of the most important, one can understand why such sauces as butter sauces or white sauce are refused at meals with meat. This rule occasions the home economics teacher considerable trouble in planning menus.
Meat and fish should not be cooked or eaten together, for such a mixture is supposed to cause leprosy. The mouth has to be washed after eating fish and before meat may be eaten.
III. JEWISH HOLIDAYS
Sabbath: No food may be cooked on the Sabbath. This means that all cooking for both days is done on day. This need has led to the development of foods such as Sabbath Kugel or Sholend, Petshai, and many others.
Passover: During Passover week no leavened bread or its product, or anything which may have touched leavened bread, may be used. This restriction holds for eight days. In every Jewish home a complete and most thorough system of cleaning precedes this holiday. No corner escapes a scrubbing and scouring, lest a particle of leaven, or what is just as bad, a particle of food which may have touched leavened bread, should be found. A complete new set of dishes is used during the week. Cutlery, silver, or metal pots may be used during this holiday if properly koshered or sterilized. The usual method of doing this is to plunge red-hot coals into boiling water, and then to immerse the desired utensils. These or any other Passover utensils may be used after the holiday is over without re-koshering, but once used without Passover precautions they are unfit for Passover use unless re-koshered. In actual practice this means that in every orthodox Jewish household there are four sets of dishes—the usual set for meat and the set for milk food, in addition to duplicate Passover sets. The Passover dishes are stored away very carefully, lest some leaven come near them.
Because of the need for abstaining from leavened bread during Passover, many interesting dishes have developed, such as the Mazzah Klos (dumplings) soup, cakes and puddings made of the mazzah meal. Almond pudding and cake are very popular. Almost all of the food cooked during this holiday requires the liberal use of shortening or fat, with great danger of a too liberal use for health, as well as from the economic point of view. The fat generally used is either goose or chicken drippings, or clarified beef fat other than suet.
Fast Days: (a) Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement). No food or drink may be had for twenty-four hours, (b) Fast of Esther. This precedes the Feast of Purim and is now observed only by the very pious. The feast is universally observed.
Semi-Fast Days: Eight days in Ab. For nine days no meat food may be eaten by the orthodox.
CHARACTERISTIC JEWISH DISHES
From Spain and Portugal comes the fondness of the modern Jew for olives and the use of oil as a frying medium. The sour and sweet stewing of meats and vegetables comes from Germany. The love of pickles, cabbage, cucumbers, and herring comes from Holland, as does also the fondness for butter cakes and bolas (grain rolls). From Poland the Jewish immigrant has brought the knowledge of the use of Lokschen or Fremsel soup (cooked with goose drippings), also stuffed and stewed fish of various kinds. From Russia comes Kasha, made of barley, grits, or cereal of some sort, which is eaten instead of a vegetable with meat gravy. Blintozos are turnovers made of a poured batter and filled with preserves or cheese, and used as a dessert. Sholend, sometimes called Kugel, are puddings of many kinds, such as Magan, Lokschen, and Farfil. Zimos, or compotes of plums, prunes, carrots and sweet potatoes, turnips and prunes, parsnips and prunes, and prunes and onions, are all puddings, and come from Russia. Zimes of apples, pears, figs, and prunes are Southern Roumanian, Galician, and Lithuanian as well.
Soups are the great standby of the poor. Krupnick is a term used for cereal soups, made of a cereal like oatmeal with potatoes and fat. When the family can afford it, meat or milk is added, as the case may be. This is the staple food of the "Yeshibot" (schools to which Jewish boys are sent to be instructed in rabbinical lore). When there is neither meat nor milk in the soup, it is called "Soupr mit nisht." This really is "Supper mit nichts."
Borsht is a form of soup. It is made of either cabbage, spinach or beet-root, and rossel (juice derived from the beet). This is made by the addition of meat, bones, onions, raisins, tartaric acid or "sour sah," sugar and sometimes tomatoes. Eggs are added just before serving, to whiten it. This is called "Farweissen."
Gehakte herring is really a salad made of chopped, boned herring, with hard-cooked eggs, onions, apples, pepper, and a little vinegar and sugar. It is used as an appetizer in the form of a canapé. Sabbath Kugel or Sholend is a dish of meat, peas, and beans, sometimes barley or potatoes as well, which is placed in the oven before Sabbath and usually eaten hot on the Sabbath. This dish is sometimes also called a Shalet.
Petshai, or Drelies, characteristic of South Russia, Galicia, and Roumania, is a calves' foot jelly made at home. (Commercial gelatin is prohibited.) The calves' feet are cleaned by first singeing off the hair. They are then koshered and stewed with onions and seasonings of salt and pepper. Like the Sabbath Kugel, this is placed in the oven the day before, and is ready Sabbath noon to be served hot. What is left is freed from bone, hard-cooked eggs and vinegar are added to it, and it is allowed to congeal. This forms a sort of aspic which is served cold in the later afternoon.
Strudel, taken from the Germans, is a single-layered jelly or fruit cake, and takes the place of pie as a dessert. It is usually rolled. The dough is as thin as tissue paper.
Teigachz is a pudding, sometimes called Kugel or Sholend, and may be made of rice, noodles, or even mashed potatoes. These usually have some drippings, eggs, and flavorings added.
Gebrattens is pot roast, and is usually accompanied by Kasha, though it is often served with potatoes which have been cooked with the pot roast. These are usually stewed to a golden brown. Onions are always an important ingredient.
Almond pudding is a favorite, because it requires neither meat nor butter, and can therefore be eaten at either type of meal. It is made of almonds, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon rind, and baked.
The obstacles to the use of meat have developed a taste for fish, as well as for cheese and milk products. Since fish is not a warm-blooded animal, it may be eaten in conjunction with milk and milk products. (This is an added reason for its popularity. The celebration of the Sabbath and the eating of fish have always been associated.) Mrs. Schapiro says that "from no orthodox table is fish entirely absent from the Sabbath meals, however difficult it may be to procure. In inland countries, like Poland, the Jews are limited to fresh-water fish. I have known people who could barely afford bread during the week to pay as much as forty or even fifty cents per pound for their Sabbath fish." Salmon is a favorite kind of fish. This is fried, white stewed, or brown stewed. Smoked salmon, pickled herring, and pickled pickerel are served as appetizers by the Russian Jews. Most characteristic of all fish dishes, perhaps, is the "gefillte fisch," for which carp, whitefish, and pike are most generally used. Part of the flesh of the fish is removed and chopped with onions, bread crumbs, seasonings, and eggs. The mixture is returned to the fish, which is then baked or stewed with more onion and a large amount of pepper at a low temperature for several hours. The long, slow cooking develops the flavor of the fish,, which blends with the other ingredients and forms a most palatable dish. While Jewish fish dishes form excellent appetizers or even entrées, these are not desirable as the main dish of the meal, because of the high seasoning. For this reason they are particularly bad for children.
LIMITATIONS OF THE JEWISH DIET IN THE UNITED STATES
When the Jew arrives in this country, some of the limitations of his diet, if unchanged by instruction, are evident.
Many of the Jewish people who come to America have lived much of the time out-of-doors, worked out-of-doors, and played out-of-doors. Here many thousands of them are tailors, sitting all day indoors at their work, and having little exercise or fresh air. Many of them pay little attention to their diet during the week, until their Sabbath. Then on Friday night, Saturday, and on our Sunday, which to most of them is a holiday, they have a feast time. On Friday all the cooking is done for the next two days. Chickens are cooked, soup made, and kitchen (cakes) and mehlspeise (flour mixtures) prepared. The result of these weekly feasts is that many of the Jews eat too much or have not a well-balanced ration.
By nature the Jews are an emotional people. A slight physical discomfort usually sends them to a doctor, whereas the readjustment of their diet would many times produce a cure.
The dietary restrictions of the use of butter and meat at the same time limit the use of vegetables. Jewish people are therefore not as fond of them as they ought to be for their own physical well-being. One must not forget that the Jewish housewife utilizes a small amount of fresh meat in dozens of ways. Rich foods are customary in Jewish families, and it is with difficulty that a taste for the simpler foods is cultivated.
Jewish women have long known how to use honey, molasses, and syrup in place of sugar. Sugar has often been a luxury in the countries from which they come. They have also been fond of rye, barley, oats, and buck-wheat. These cereals have been used both in puddings and soups.
Probably no other people have so many kinds of "sours" as the Jews. On the other hand, they have little knowledge of stewed fruits but have many kinds of rich, preserved fruits. All these highly-seasoned foods they have in abundance.
In the Jewish sections of our large cities there are storekeepers whose only goods are pickles. They have cabbages pickled whole, shredded, or chopped and rolled in leaves; peppers pickled; also string beans; cucumbers, sour, half sour, and salted; beets; and many kinds of meat and fish. This excessive use of pickled foods destroys the taste for milder flavors, causes irritation, and renders assimilation more difficult.
In prescribing diets for the Jewish people, it might be helpful both to the person who prescribes and to the patient for whom the diet is prescribed to remember that all their foods may be classified under three heads: (1) meat or fish; (2) milk and its products; and (3) neutrals. Meat and milk are never mixed. Neutrals may be used with meat or with milk products, but never with both in the same meal.
The Jewish children suffer from too many pickles, too few vegetables, and too little milk. Because of their dietary laws, they cannot drink milk with their meals if they have meat. Therefore mid-morning and mid-afternoon meals of milk have to be introduced. This is impossible if the children are in school unless there is a school lunch. Enuresis is quite common among these children, as they are accustomed to having highly-spiced foods in their diet, with pickles at and between meals.
For undernourished children among the Jews, it is necessary not only to urge the use of milk, but to plan when it may be taken, as it cannot be taken at the same meal with meat. Vegetables are usually needed in greater abundance. These may be eaten in borsht, a favorite soup corresponding somewhat with our vegetable soup, but this does not give them in very large portions. Therefore a menu should be given to show how they may be combined with other foods. If served with a white sauce or butter, vegetables must be eaten without meat, but can be eaten at the noon meal or lunch with bread. Creamed vegetable soups may also be given in this same way, but never with meat at the same meal. Poached or "dropped" eggs are not often used. The process is unknown. A "dropped" egg was prescribed for a patient who did not know what it meant. When it was explained that an egg was broken and its contents dropped into hot water, he shook his head and said, "Oh, no! I lose my egg; he get all mixed up with the water." When he was taken to the stove and saw an egg poached, he stood in wonder and admiration. He said, "I go home and tell my wife; she never knowed that." Since then many mothers and even children themselves have been shown in this same Food Clinic how to poach eggs.
Cereals, if used as a breakfast food, are usually tested as follows: "Place them on a hot plate. If no worms or other insects appear, they are fit to be eaten; if not fit, they must be thrown away." The cereals used by the Jewish people are barley, oats, buckwheat, and rice. These are baked in a pudding and eaten with meat. Children soon learn to eat cereals boiled with milk, and will learn more easily if raisins are added.
With Jewish constipation patients the most satisfactory results are secured by removing all meat until the patient appreciates the value and learns the preparation of many vegetables.
In the treatment of constipation, which is very frequent, cereal pudding or krupnick is given, which is prepared as follows:
Krupnick
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 3 cups milk
- 6 potatoes, cut up
- 1 tablespoon goose or chicken fat
- Boil all together three hours
Six glasses of water a day are prescribed "to kosher the intestines," also rye bread or "Jewish Black Bread," and borsht once a day.
Borsht (Jewish Beet Soup)
For a good, wholesome borsht with a natural sourness one has to make what is known as rossel. Take three bunches red beets; peel and cut in halves; wash. Put into a wooden or earthenware jar. Cover with tepid soft water and set in a warm place, covering jar with towel. In four days rossel will be ready. A crust of real dark bread improves rossel. When ready, put into a cellar or other cool place, to prevent the process of fermentation from continuing. To make borsht, make a good consommé with meat and as many vegetables as are on hand. When ready, bake a few raw beets in skins; cut them fine and sprinkle with a httle sugar. Add to strained consommé, and add some of the rossel to taste. Boil once and serve with sour salts.
Diabetic Diet
There are many Jews who have diabetes. In prescribing for them one has not only to give a new dietary, but also to teach the ways of cooking the foods allowed. For example, they have been accustomed to having vegetables in small quantities, cooked with beef; but for the diabetic this is excluded, and new forms of cooking vegetables must be introduced. All five or ten per cent, carbohydrate vegetables after cooking may be served with drawn butter, white sauce, hollandaise sauce, or with salt and a small portion of lemon juice or vinegar. Green peppers stuffed with vegetables are another pleasant variety.
As the Jewish dietary does not allow shellfish or tripe, no thought need be given these; but liver is frequently used, koshered over the fire. This must be specified as not allowed in the diet.
Before Passover the patient must be warned not to eat mazzah or unleavened bread which is made of flour, salt, eggs, and water in the form of large crackers.
Eggs baked in spinach or scrambled with mushrooms may be ordered. The Jewish people are fond of the flavor of almond omelet, prepared with one-half cup almonds, four eggs, and four tablespoons cream. Blanch the almonds, chop fine, and pound smooth. Beat the eggs, add the cream, and turn into a hot pan in which one tablespoon of butter has been melted. When the omelet is set, sprinkle the almonds over it, fold over, and serve.
Nephritic Diet
In cases of nephritis, all pickled foods should be discouraged; also the use of "sour salts." Almost all their soups are low in protein. Many of their meat dishes have little meat in them. For example, Bitki or Hamburg Steak:
Bitki
Take two cups of clear beef chopped, and two cups of bread crumbs that have been soaked in a little water, leaving them quite moist; mix thoroughly, season with pepper and salt, and shape into individual cakes. Fry as Hamburg Steak.
Both Kascha and Schavel are dishes that can be recommended and enjoyed. They are made in the following way:
Kascha
Made of whole buckwheat grain, fine barley, whole oats, or millet (washed in many waters before using). Take one pound of grain and rub through it one whole egg. Dry thoroughly on a frying pan, stirring to prevent burning. When dry, put into an earthenware dish with cover. Cover with boiling water. Add salt to taste and butter size of egg. Bake in moderate oven until done (from two to three hours). Watch to prevent burning. When edges get too dry, add boiling water, pouring along edges. Favorite dish for peasants.
Schavel (Sorrel Soup)
Chop fine one pound sorrel, one pound spinach; put into pot and cook in boiling water (open pot), adding salt to taste. When greens are tender, about one-half hour, take two yolks of eggs in a bowl; add a little salt and stir hot mixture into the yolks, drop by drop, to prevent curdling of yolks. Set out to cool. When cold put on ice. To serve: Put into plate a tablespoon of sour cream, and add cold soup, stirring cream. Add chopped, hard-boiled eggs. Favorite dish for summer.
Diet for Tuberculosis
The diet for a Jewish tuberculous patient would have less of the carbohydrates and more of the protein foods than is usually found in the Jewish daily dietary. Milk and milk and eggs may be given between meals, both in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon and before bedtime. This would not interfere with either their lunch or dinner of meat. Milk dishes of all kinds, from a plain boiled or baked custard to a Bavarian cream, will have to be taught. Once more the staple borsht may be used, made without meat and with the addition of sour cream. Sour cream is a favorite dressing for berries or fruit, and may be used freely by these patients.
Eggs scrambled with vegetables or baked in a nest of vegetables are two of their favorite ways of preparing these foods.
Scrambled Eggs with Potatoes
Three eggs, three potatoes, one large onion, one tablespoon chicken fat, three tablespoons milk, onequarter teaspoon salt, pinch pepper. Cut up potatoes and onions, and brown in pan with chicken fat. Add well-beaten eggs, milk, salt, and pepper. Stir until scrambled.
The Jewish housewife has had to adapt herself a number of times to new foods and their preparation, each time remembering her dietary laws and arranging the recipes to conform to them. This fact makes her an apt pupil.
- ↑ Extract from "Jewish Dietary Problems," by Mary L. Schapiro, in The Journal of Home Economics, Vol. XI, No. 2, February, 1919. One may also consult with interest Miss E. G. Hern's book, "My Mother and I."