September 17, 2015

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TUV HA’ARETZ CSA 2015
ISSUE #17: SEPTEMBER 17, 2015
TUV HASHAVUA
BEST OF THE WEEK
Before the Yom Kippur Fast, Cholent Offers
Linda Morel, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, jta.org
Comfort
MANY THANKS TO
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At a surprise 40th birthday party for a friend, her mother stood at their stove
stirring a huge cauldron of simmering stew. The chicken, flanken, potatoes,
carrots, dried peas and barley in the pot emitted an aroma that made the offerings
THURSDAY 9/17
prepared by the caterer brought in by my friend’s husband pale in comparison.
[Week #17– A]
“This is Lynda’s favorite food,” her mother said, dipping a ladle into the depth of
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the pot and asking me to take a taste.
Stuart Alter
I wasn’t expecting to swoon. “What is this?” I asked.
Melissa Barnes
“Cholent, a Sabbath stew,” she said. “But in our family, we eat it all the time."
Kimberly Summers
This party 22 years ago was the first time I had even heard the word.
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I immediately asked for her recipe, which I have been making ever since. Over
Alexa Weitzman
time, it occurred to me that cholent is the best thing to eat before the Yom Kippur
Ilona Michelowska
fast begins. Many Jews customarily consume chicken and rice on erev Yom Kippur.
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A one-pot meal brimming with nutritious foods, cholent is a traditional Sabbath
David Snyder
dish. However, it is usually served for lunch on Saturdays or as a hot meal
immediately after the Havdalah service that brings Shabbat to an end. Cholent
NEXT WEEK: PICK-UP is an ideal hot meal for Sabbath observers, who do not cook or perform any
ON THURSDAY, 9/24 work from Friday at sundown until Shabbat ends 24 hours later.
My friend’s mother, who was born in Germany in the 1920s, told me that
every Friday before dusk the Jewish women in their neighborhood brought pots
THURSDAY 9/24
full of raw stew ingredients to the Jewish bakery. With sundown approaching, the
[Week #18 – B]
women would place their stew pots in the oven, just minutes before the baker
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turned off his oven to observe Shabbat.
Ben Pecora-Sanefski
Over the next 24 hours, the meat, potatoes and barley, which started out
Jillian Coulton
swimming in water, turned into a chunky, mouth-watering cholent to be served
Heather Cohn
steaming hot immediately after the Sabbath.
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A signature dish of Ashkenazim, cholent can be made from almost anything. One
reason is because in the Old Country, Jews were poor and threw any scrap of food
Judy Trupin
they could find into their stews. However, a traditional cholent is made with meat
Ilona Michalowska
and meat bones, potatoes, beans and barley. More modern recipes for vegetarian
Alexa Weitzman
cholents dotted with tofu now abound.
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Not to be outdone, Sephardim for centuries have prepared spectacular Sabbath
Takashi Yoneta
stews infused with the most marvelous seasoning. These aromatic recipes are often
called hamim (Hebrew for ‘hot’ or ‘warm’).
TUV HA’ARETZ CSA at the
Forest Hills Jewish Center
In Morocco, this style of stew is called tagine, named for the conical pots in
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which the dish is prepared. Sabbath stews hail from Egypt, Iraq, Syria and any
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country where Jews have settled.
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Jewish women in Morocco traditionally paid a non-Jew to set up a pile of hot
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coals. Before sundown on the Sabbath, they sank their tagines full of stew
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ingredients into the coals. Guarding against thieves, the non-Jew watched over
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their food, which barely bubbled on red hot coals that gradually cooled over the
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course of a full day.
! Golden Earthworm Farm:
The key to a good cholent, hamim, or tagine is to gently simmer the medley of
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ingredients
for many hours. Original recipes entailed 24 hours of low-heat
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cooking.
However,
many people new to this lengthy preparation are hesitant to
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“Cholent,” cont’d on page 2 …