Shavuot Soups

Shavuot celebrations often center around brunch, where bagels and lox grab the attention. Those who branch out typically gravitate to blintzes and kugels. But in the “old country,” Shavuot meals often started with cold, creamy soups, an appetizer that has all but disappeared in today’s grab-and-go world.

While refrigerated soup sounds like an oxymoron, in the days before air conditioning Jews adored dairy soups, beginning at Shavuot and continuing throughout the summer.

Falling seven weeks after Passover, Shavuot commemorates the children of Israel receiving the Torah from God at Mount Sinai. According to scholars, when they returned from this event, the ancient Israelites probably were too exhausted to prepare meat and instead ate dairy products.

New to the laws of kashrut, they needed to kosher their cookware, so dairy foods probably sufficed in the interim.

Over the centuries, milk’s whiteness has been compared to the purity of the Torah. Tethered in time to Passover, Shavuot falls during the season when cows produce an abundance of milk.

For these reasons, Shavuot has become a dairy holiday, and Jews from many countries have celebrated with a variety of cold, creamy soups. Recipes fall into two categories: fruity and sweet or herbal and green.

In her “Jewish Holiday Cookbook,” Joan Nathan explains that fruit soups, often sweetened with honey, originated with German Jews who made them while summering near the Baltic Sea. This practice spread to neighboring countries. During the summer months, plum soup with its sour cream base was wildly popular among Eastern European Jews.

Hungarian Sour Cherry Soup causes Jews who remember it to swoon. Tangy morello cherries, which flood local markets in June, produced the defining taste. On a trip to Budapest, my daughter and I saw cherry vendors on many street corners. We snacked all day on those cherries, purchased in small paper bags, and at dinner we were treated to cherry soup.

Back home I tried to replicate our experience but never found morello cherries. Don’t ask how long it took to remove enough cherry pits to feed four. For days my fingers were stained red, and the results were a far cry from my Budapest memories.

Instead I turned to the strawberry yogurt soups springing up on restaurant menus. In a fraction of the time it took to pit cherries, I devised a refreshing soup that’s been a big hit ever since. Along the way I discovered Greek yogurt, which is far superior in taste and texture to other yogurts.

During the summer, Hungarians serve most soups cold. On the savory side, green bean soup was a favorite among Jews. While it can be difficult to locate the slender, young beans required for the recipes, I have substituted with haricots verts—thin, French-style string beans.

Jews of my grandparents’ generation raved about Schav, a cool, tart soup made from sorrel, an herb that grew wild on hills throughout Eastern and Central Europe. But sorrel is a rare commodity in America, found only in farmer’s markets for a brief season.

Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Jews love chilled spinach soup. Seasoning varies, but yogurt is the common denominator.

Originating in Persia, Cucumber Yogurt Soup is widespread throughout the Mediterranean. It arrived on America restaurant menus during the 1990s. Crisp and refreshing, this soup requires no cooking.

I was introduced to yogurt soup by my husband, who learned to make it in Tel Aviv from a cousin. Since their family has Italian Jewish roots, David sprinkles in balsamic vinegar, claiming it adds punch with mellow tones. Preferring the lemon juice from his cousin’s recipe, I object to this practice because it muddies the soup’s milky hue. We often compromise and use white balsamic vinegar.

In his cookbook “Olive Trees and Honey,” chef and rabbi Gil Marks notes that Jews from some countries heighten yogurt soup with zesty ingredients: garlic, scallions, cilantro, mint, tarragon, raisins, ground nuts or hard-boiled eggs.

I have fond childhood memories of my father each summer pouring bottled borscht into a blender along with dollops of sour cream. As the blender blades twirled, I was thrilled by the gorgeous magenta color he created. I have ratcheted up the soup’s intensity by adding sugar and vinegar to this last-minute appetizer.

It’s a pity that few people today prepare any of these recipes. Chilled soup is part of our collective consciousness, and the perfect antidote to summer.

Cucumber Yogurt Soup
Summer Borscht
Chilled Hungarian Green Bean Soup
Strawberry Smoothie Soup

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