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Eastern Market Fish
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Jewish holidays are “moveable feasts,” dependent on a moon-oriented Jewish calendar, and this coming year – 5770 – Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sundown Sept. 18. Ten days later, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, follows – this is the most solemn holiday in the Jewish calendar, a day of fasting and prayers for forgiveness for a year’s worth of sins and for the hope that you’re inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. And, of course, that means holiday meals.
Rosh Hashanah is a holiday celebrated for two days by the very observant and for one day by Reform Jews. Some time is spent at synagogue, highlighted by the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn, in a three-part welcome to the New Year, and some time is spent at home with family and friends, starting with a big dinner.
When I moved to the Hill from New York, I would find myself running all over town to put together the pieces, except … I was happily shocked when on my first visit to Eastern Market, feeling I’d arrived in the Deep South, I reached the south end, and there, tucked into the corner was a JEWISH BAKERY! Rye bread, rugelach, challah, other familiar treats – and the addition of garlic-y B’tampte pickles, horseradish and jars of herring – great cognitive dissonance!
Getting Ready to Cook
Today, cooking for holidays is easy. Years ago, Jewish cookbooks were rare, now there is a plethora. Among my favorites are Joan Nathan’s “Jewish Cooking in America” and Claudia Roden’s “The Book of Jewish Food,” a comprehensive tome featuring Middle Eastern and African recipes, as well as European.
While the Safeway has a few shelves of kosher basics, Harris Teeter has a thorough selection of kosher foods (e.g. four kinds of bottled gefilte fish and jars of chicken soup with matzo balls) in its “ethnic” aisle and an entire freezer case loaded with kosher latkes, soups, blintzes – and bagel pizzas. Harris Teeter also carries yahrzeit candles, used to memorialize the dead on Yom Kippur.
Today, expanded and fancier, the Sweet Shop still provides special Rosh Hashanah treats as does its neighbor, Marvelous Market. Both shops sell round challah rather than braided (Marvelous Market offers one-pound loaves standard and larger loaves by special order), to represent a continuum of happiness for the New Year, honey cake, apple bread and babka because the year should be sweet. In fact, dinner begins with a blessing for a sweet year, followed by passing a dish of honey with apple slices and chunks of challah for dipping.
While I’ve happily and successfully tried some of Roden’s Moroccan and Egyptian recipes, I’m a traditionalist at heart, and a good brisket still gets my taste buds going. My favorite recipe is from Nathan’s book and comes from someone called the Brisket King. (Here’s a dirty little secret from someone with a reputation as a gourmet cook – he, and now I, uses Heinz chili sauce, Lipton onion soup, and worst of all, regular Coca Cola, as cooking liquid. Trust me, it works.) To go with that, I make tzimmes, a wonderful mélange of sweet potatoes, carrots, prunes and dried apricots, and honey, and a fresh vegetable soufflé or vegetable latkes (pancakes).
Dessert? Honey cake and taygelach – a tooth-shattering, sticky and totally irresistible confection made of little balls of fried dough, soaked in – guess what – honey, blended with orange peel. To be fully authentic, try a kosher wine – there are some really decent California and Israeli reds and whites that bear no resemblance to sweet Manischewitz. A sweet start to the New Year indeed.
Putting it all Together
Yom Kippur, starting at sundown on Sept. 27, is the time for a substantial, simple meal before synagogue—perhaps chicken soup with matzo balls (I use the proportions and process on the Manischewitz matzo meal box, substituting chicken fat for oil and club soda for water. I also separate the eggs and beat the whites before including them, ending up with matzo balls that are “floaters” rather than “sinkers.”). Garnish the soup with farfel (tiny pieces of matzo) and mandlen (airy, small, toasted dough puffs) both available at Harris Teeter. For a main course, I prepare a plump roasted chicken or baked stuffed fish from the market, fresh green beans and a noodle or potato kugel (pudding). “Have a good fast” is a traditional greeting before the holiday, and a meal like this will help.
My family always broke the Yom Kippur fast in the same tempting and no-fuss way. We would sit down to a platter laden with herring – in cream sauce, in wine sauce, salted (matjes), chopped into herring salad – and smoked fish – lox, whitefish, dry-smoked salmon, carp, sable fish, and those lovely unctuous wrinkled black olives in oil. There would be blintzes and sour cream, bagels and cream cheese, a big salad, and just in case anyone was still hungry, coffee cake and mandelbrot (a Jewish version of biscotti) to dunk in tea.
As in many New York neighborhoods, preparation for us just meant hitting the “appetizing,” a local phenom specializing only in smoked fish, bagels, pickled tomatoes, olives and the other accoutrements of fine dairy (non-meat) dining.
Here, it requires a little more effort, but it’s still an easily doable great meal for a gang. Herring and a variety of smoked fish (some traditional, some not, all tasty) are available at Southern Maryland Seafood, Harris Teeter carries a whitefish salad that provides an addictive substitute for the herring salad, and zesty olives are everywhere (aren’t olive bars a great innovation?). That kosher freezer case at Harris Teeter will provide the same golden blintzes, in several varieties, that my family enjoyed years ago. As for bagels, the only two places I’ve found to satisfy a New Yorker’s yen for the real thing are not local: Georgetown Bagel and Bagel City on Rockville Pike, so take your pick of pale DC substitutes.
I often tell people that there are two kinds of Jewish holidays, synagogue and home, like Chanukah and Passover. But that’s not really true. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are synagogue days, but there are still lots of great food and family togetherness. Happy holidays! |
