The Jewish New Year is right around the corner, but with the advent of a new semester and its attendant responsibilities, I haven’t been able to give the holiday the attention it deserves, especially when it comes to figuring out what I’m going to serve, to whom, and when.
Little wonder, then, that I can’t help giving more than a passing glance at the list of foodstuffs ready for purchase and a quick turn in the microwave which Zabar’s, that fabled Manhattan food emporium, has made available for “Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur 2013.”
In addition to dutifully notifying would-be consumers when these two Jewish holidays take place, a function once filled by the local kosher butcher who distributed a Jewish calendar along with the brisket to his customers, Zabar’s offers a wide range of provisions. They run the gamut from “Great Beginnings” to “Main Courses,” and from “Veggies and Sides” to an “Apples & Honey Gift Crate.” There’s the requisite chopped liver, of course, as well as two kinds of gefilte fish. Stuffed cabbage, brisket, and a roast turkey round out the main bill of fare; the latter is even accompanied by a gentle, grandmotherly warning: “Do not overheat.”
Vegetables are also widely available but, with the exception of mashed potatoes and that old, Frenchified standby, string beans almondine, they strike a decidedly contemporary note: Asparagus with sun dried tomatoes, anyone? Braised brussel sprouts?!
So far, so good, especially if you eat your vegetables. But then, throwing caution to the wind -- or something -- the Zabar’s Holiday Dinner Menu ups the ante, leaving no Jewish culinary cliché unturned. It encompasses virtually every item that ever graced the family table of yesteryear: bagels, cream cheese, blintzes, smoked salmon, whitefish, belly lox, and chopped herring salad. All this and brisket, too? On the same table?
It took me a moment or two to adjust my sights, much less my stomach, before it occurred to me that the smoked fish and dairy delights were intended for the Yom Kippur break fast, and not for Rosh Hashanah. Even so, their collective appearance under the rubric of a Jewish holiday dinner strikes me as a bit odd, even misplaced.
It isn’t just that the Zabar’s list of Jewish gastronomic favorites dissolves the traditional boundaries between milk and meat products. Huddling together on a menu designed for Rosh Hashanah and (post)Yom Kippur, they also seem, well, unmoored from their traditional context. Once a regular feature of the American Jewish diet, these items are meant these days to be consumed only now and then. Eating Jewish food has become an occasion rather than the staff of life.
