Wheat and dairy

May 16, 2010 - 8:36 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Food, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life 

As Rachel wrote, Shavuot is around the corner, which means I have to start thinking about what I’m going to cook for this dairy-heavy holiday. Why all the dairy? A few possibilities: Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah, which includes the laws for keeping kosher, including the prohibition of eating milk with meat and slaughtering animals according to a certain method. So, when the Israelites received the Torah, they didn’t know how to prepare kosher meat and therefore ate a dairy meal to celebrate their receiving of the Torah. Another possibility is that the Torah, like milk, sustains the Jews. And, finally, the Israelites received the Torah after the miseries of Egypt, while on their way to the land of milk and honey. Eating dairy commemorates the sweetness of freedom and the promise of their new life ahead. And, perhaps, the whiteness of dairy symbolizes purity, like the Torah.

At the same time, we are a lactose-intolerant people. In fact, 75% of us are supposedly lactose intolerant and I am one of them. So while I don’t have a problem with all the dairy, I tend to stay away from all things cow-related and eat more sheep and goat milk products. And yet, and yet, what to serve for this festival holiday that celebrates cheesecake? In a country where the supermarket dairy shelves are simply groaning with dairy products? And where Strauss, one of the largest dairy concerns, puts out a Shavuot recipe collection in one of the weekend newspapers, in which each recipe contains at least three dairy products?

In brief, I’m not looking for a blintz souffle recipe, or even a cheesecake. I’ve got friends coming who will take care of that, as well as a chilled yogurt and cucumber soup and, the required blintzes, but savory, with mushrooms, not sweet with sugar and fruit. And, we’re going to make ice cream, even though I saw a flyer advertising Ben and Jerry’s ice cream at wholesale prices. It made me curious, but not enough to order any.

So you can imagine my relief when Weekend the Jerusalem Post Thursday magazine that is delivered to subscribers only, had an article from Phyllis Glazer extolling the virtues of eating grains on Shavuot, which is, after all, a harvest festival. The Shavuot season was also the time of the annual grain harvest, of barley, wheat and first fruits, and she was pushing grain recipes, in particular, a recipe for bulgur ‘kubbeh’ stuffed with raisins and onions.

2 cups fine bulgur
4 cups water
1 T olive oil
1 t salt
2 t cumin
1/4 t cardamom
1-1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1-1.5 cups raisins
1 medium onion, finely chopped
yogurt for serving

Pour bulgur, water, olive oil and salt into a pot and bring to a boil, removing any foam. Lower heat to medium and cook until water is absorbed, about five minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat and add 1 tsp. cumin. Let cool slightly. Slowly add a cup of flour and knead with wet hands, adding more flour only if necessary to create a dough that stays together. Using damp hands, form 24 oval shapes and place in an oiled-and-parchment-paper-lined baking pan. Cover ovals while preparing filling.

Filling: Saute onion in frying pan until onion begins to brown. Add raisins and cook another minute, then add rest of cumin and cardamom.

Take one of the ovals in the palm of one hand and use your finger to create a deep furrow the length of the kubbeh. Add a teaspoon of the filling and pinch along the line to enclose it, then roll the oval between your palms to return it to oval shape. (Phyllis says you can make patties as well.)

Brush the tops of the kubbeh with olive oil and bake in a preheated, 350-degree oven for 35-40 minutes until golden, turning once or twice during baking. Serve with a yogurt sauce.

I haven’t made them yet, but I’m planning on it. I’ll let you know how they turned out.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Shavuot Spring Harvest

May 16, 2010 - 10:43 AM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Food, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Religion 

Shavuot – the Feast of Weeks, is a harvest holiday. And over the past century, nowhere was this fact better celebrated than on the kibbutzim. Although these cooperative agricultural settlements were (and are) for the most part, non-religious, this holiday, like its autumn counterpart Sukkot – the Feast of Tabernacles, was a chance to show off their best crops.

Kibbutzim traditionally marked Shavuot with a parade and a pageant. In olden days, these were preceded by wagons loaded with produce.

Later on, more modern methods of transport took their place.

And of course, no self-respecting Shavuot celebration would be complete with out the dance of the tractors!

More lovely holiday images from various kibbutz archives are available to view at Wikimedia Commons. Happy holiday, everyone — and don’t overdo the dairy!

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The white holiday

May 26, 2009 - 2:12 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Food, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness 

dry-bonesShavuot is approaching, and what I like about this holiday in Israel is that you can celebrate it from a variety of approaches. If you’re observant, there’s the standard ‘yontif‘ handling of the holiday, which means food, prayers, something white to wear, and heading to a tikkun on Shavuot eve to learn all or part of the night.

But as one of the three pilgrimage festivals — Sukkot and Passover are the other two — Shavuot ranks up there in Israel, with all kinds of alternative and traditional festivities that appeal to even the most secular of Israeli Jews. There are the kibbutz celebrations, which include small children dressed in white, arms akimbo in order to hold baskets of recently picked fruit and vegetables to mark Shavuot’s stance as an agricultural festival. There are the usual family gatherings, as Israelis so love to do, including tables groaning with all kinds of homemade dairy fare, since this is considered to be the ‘dairy’ holiday. (See this great JTA article about alternatives to dairy on Shavuot.)

And since Israelis also love their dairy — we have more types of yogurt drinks per capita than any other country — one of the local dairy companies, Tnuva, puts out a Shavuot magazine each year, as an insert in the local newspapers, with dairy recipes from the kitchens of their employees. Nicely done, and, I have to say, it has been the source of more than one good recipe that’s come out of my kitchen.

There are also the learning celebrations, given Shavuot’s source as the holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah, and that has led to the traditional tikkun, all-night learning that takes place on the night of the holiday. In my city of Jerusalem, a city of much learning, there are hundreds of tikkunim to choose from, held at every synagogue, yeshiva, school and place of learning. But what I’ve loved in years past is to head to Tel Aviv, where the streets are full of people dressed in white heading to all-night lectures of the more alternative type. Those can include poetry readings, yoga and Torah, discussions about the place of Torah in a secular society, or, for the more party-oriented, all-night clubbing in honor of Shavuot. For that matter, since Tel Aviv is considered the white city for its collection of Bauhaus architecture, you could celebrate Shavuot by doing a midnight tour of Bauhaus structures.

I will be making cheesecake, but I won’t be heading out for some all-night (not that I ever did) learning this year. But if you’re in J-town, I did notice some great options for the Tikkun, including an Israeli singdown and a 12:30 am walk around the Old City, hosted by the Tower of David Museum.

Happy learning and eating.

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