printNovember 7, 2008
Cookbooks through the Generations
Passing down family favorites
Debra Roth Kane
For Chanukah, you wouldn’t dream of deviating from your aunt’s latke recipe. For Shabbat, a flavorful family recipe for brisket is routinely a winner. You remember Nana on her birthday, and many other occasions, by making mandel bread with the recipe that she refused to share until she was ninety. Food is a great way to celebrate tradition and connect to the past.
The Pikesville Barnes and Noble bookstore has three shelves devoted to Jewish cookbooks, full of titles such as “Kosher by Design” and “The New York Times Jewish Cookbook,” but often the most well-worn cookbook in a Jewish kitchen is the one put together in a binder by mother for daughter, or a synagogue cookbook that has assembled the congregants’ favorite recipes of childhood.
As Ruxton resident Amy Sponseller puts it, “I don’t need anyone telling me how to make chicken soup. I know my mother’s chicken soup.”
Stephanie Kronthal of Pikesville says she doesn’t trust just any cookbook. She likes “America Cooks Kosher,” the cookbook assembled and published by Beth Tfiloh Congregation in 2004. Kronthal says, “I bought it because Beth Tfiloh had it published.
People from the synagogue gave their favorite recipes, and they were tested, so I feel more confident making them, knowing that people from this area gave their best recipes.” In fact, her 15-year-old son Bradley likes to make Aunt Sylvia’s famous mandel bread.
Sponseller has an even older cookbook at her disposal — her great-grandmother’s. “I kept it,” she says, “because it made me giggle.” It was published in 1947, and is titled “The New Jewish Cook Book of Favorite Recipes,” by Betty Dean. Its highlights include out-of-date nutritional information. “It says Vitamin G is essential for growth,” Sponseller says. “Is there a Vitamin G?”
While Sponseller has seven or eight Jewish cookbooks in total, as well as many other currently popular cookbooks, the one she uses most often did not come from a bookstore. It is written out by hand — her own and her mother’s — and is full of recipes from family and friends. She likes making her mother’s recipes because “love, sentiment, and good memories are involved.”
“I remember walking into my grandmother’s house in Washington Heights, opening the door to a long, dark hallway. Smells of the most wonderful meal would greet you at the door. Even in the winter, with snow and sleet, all the smells made you feel warm and welcome,” she says.
Sponseller and her mother, Ruth Juskowitz, make Juskowitz’s mother’s honey cake from a quirky recipe that lists ingredients like “1/2 glass oil.” Sponseller knows what this means: Her grandmother saved money on cooking supplies by using yarzheit candle glasses to measure ingredients.
Even today, Juskowitz still uses a brown paper bag to line the pan, because, says Sponseller, “that’s how it’s been done. There’s comfort in the traditions.”
Dina Billian of Pikesville is uniquely lucky because her mother’s recipes were published by the Baltimore Board of Jewish Education in 1983, in a cookbook titled “Recipes and Jewish Cooking Experiences for Preschool Children.” Her mother, Marcia Kargon, is a nutritionist. She wrote the book, as she says, “to put together recipes, and add learning skills so that kids could participate.”
Though the cookbook is no longer available commercially, it is used often in Billian’s kitchen. She says of the cookbook, “I use the recipes religiously. They’re perfect.”
Billian believes that the recipes, for latkes, hamantashen and much more, have importance that goes beyond good taste. “There are things that my family does not do, like being shomer Shabbos. For us, maintaining tradition through food helps teach my children the significance of the culture of Judaism.”
Of all the recipes in the cookbook, Billian particularly recommends the noodle kugel soufflé, which she always eats to break the fast on Yom Kippur. “It is the most comforting food after a day of introspection and fasting. We’ve been going to the same friends’ house for break-fast for thirty years. They make the kugel. It’s a constant.”
For Sponseller, whose father died in January of 1993, food provides a meaningful connection to her father.
“The following Rosh Hashanah, I didn’t think I could bear not to have his breads. My father made all the breads in the house. We found one in the freezer and were so excited. Then I decided to try to make one. We had his recipes,” she recalls.
Noodle Kugel Soufflé
From “Recipes and Jewish Cooking Experiences for Preschool Children,” Baltimore Board of Jewish Education, 1983.
8 oz wide noodles 1 pinch salt
6 eggs, separated 1 pt sour cream
2 tsp vanilla 8 oz whipped cream cheese
1⁄3 cup sugar 1 cup white raisins
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook noodles according to directions on package. Drain in colander.
3. Beat egg yolks with vanilla, sugar, salt, sour cream and cream cheese until smooth and well blended. Combine noodles with egg yolk mixture and raisins.
4. Beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Stir whites gently into noodle mixture.
5. Pour into a greased baking pan (about 12” x 8” x 2”). Bake for about 40-50 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.
Yield: 12-16 servings. Serve hot or cold with a favorite cooked fruit or berry sauce, if desired.
Family Collections
Web sites such as scanmyrecipes.com are devoted to helping people assemble family recipes. For a fee, you can have a collection published on the web, archived on CD-ROM, or bound to your own specifications.
A small three-ring binder may suffice just as well to keep those good meals and good memories close at hand for generations to come.