Cardamom and pistachio give a modern spin and a bit of crunch to the best way of using up spotty brown bananas. Ground cardamom can be bought online. For an even better flavour, extract and grind the seeds from 10 green cardamom pods using a spice grinder or pestle and mortar.

This is delicious served warm with butter, but equally good with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and a drizzle of honey.

'The last time I saw this many expectant Jewish faces was at my barmitzvah," quips Ian Marber. The celebrated diet expert is giving his inaugural talk as patron of the newly founded Food Academy at the London Jewish Cultural Centre's Golders Green building.

According to South African-born Robinne Collie, who runs Food@Work, there is no better place than the kitchen to tackle difficult issues, particularly surrounding work.

There is a good reason for that characteristic "love it or hate it" moment when you sink your teeth into a slice of traditional rye bread. It is caraway. The distinctive flavour you also find in sauerkraut, traditional borscht and other eastern European and Scandinavian favourites - a small crescent-shaped seed with deep roots in Ashkenazi culinary history.

He may be about to launch sophisticated Italian and pan-Asian cuisine in London, but it is not a vision of the perfect tiramisu or teriyaki which is misting up Arkady Novikov's eyes when we meet at his Mayfair restaurant.

"Kneidlach," he says, "is what gives me goose bumps. Stuffed chicken neck, matzo brei and other things my grandmother made me. Like gefilte fish - now, I make my own."

In his recent BBC documentary, Jerusalem on a Plate, Yotam Ottolenghi shared his passion for the wealth and variety of food in his home-city. Jerusalem has always been known as the capital and holy centre of Israel, but in recent years it has started to provide Tel Aviv with real competition as the country's culinary top spot.

The amount of fried food circulating at Chanucah means that for thosekeeping an eye on their health, the festival of not-so lite a bit of an ordeal.

The jury is out on whether or not a low-fat latke is worth grating a potato for, and no one wants to be a party pooper, so here is the low-down on oil and ways of enjoying it without harming your health.

Katz's deli, Carnegie Deli, 2nd Avenue Deli. Who hasn't heard of them? New York has for years been delivering legendary Jewish food, sometimes immortalised in movies, in a way London has never really matched.

Food trends tend eventually to cross the pond, but for whatever reason, Jewish food has remained entrenched in London's north-western suburbs.

By Linda Dangoor
Waterpoint Press, £16.99

Style: Simple home-style food with an Iraqi slant.

Premise:
Dangoor follows in the footsteps of Claudia Roden in documenting and preserving the recipes of her childhood, "out of a desire to teach my nephews and their generation how to cook the Iraqi dishes they loved so much".

The girl at the reception desk at the new Buca di Beppo restaurant in Elstree's Village Hotel has never heard of Robert Earl. Fortunately, one of the PRs fluttering about overhears and rushes over.

Robert Earl himself might well have been unimpressed. He is, as you will most likely already be aware, a hospitality entrepreneur of gargantuan proportions. Not physically.

What is it about Israelis and sushi? The Middle East and Japan are many miles apart, and you would think the Israeli appetite for hearty, spicy fare with plenty of dairy would be at odds with a cuisine composed of dainty portions of fish, rice and seaweed.

School:
Angela Malik School of Food and Wine, East Acton, London W3. www.angelamalik.co.uk

Class:
Indian curries

The pitch:
Former City accountant and born-again chef Angela Malik promises we will learn how to "make magic in our mouths" - balancing the sensations of salty, sweet, hot, sour and umami (the fifth basic, savoury, taste).

On offer:

Russell and Juliette Joffe, founders of restaurant chain Giraffe, were childhood "eat-hearts". They met at Hendon County school (alma mater of Peter Mandelson, Gerald Ratner, and Robert Earl of Planet Hollywood) at the tender age of 13. Throughout their teens the foodie pair threw dinner parties - he in the kitchen, she front of house.

Thierry Marx is arguably France's most famous avant-garde chef. As executive director of Sur Mesure and Camelia at the recently opened Mandarin Oriental, Paris, he heads two of the capital's top gastronomic restaurants. He says "My job definition is a quote from a Japanese Master: Cooking, is for looking at, meditating on and eating".

Jews and mushrooms have not always had a happy association. During medieval times mushrooms had extremely unpleasant connotations. Antisemitism was rife, so when a fungus that looked like a thick rubbery fleshy ear was discovered, it was immediately labelled as a Jew's Ear or Judas's Ear fungus. Its official Latin name was auricularia auricular Judea.

'Beer in Israel, really?" I think the organisers forgave my stunned response when they rang to ask if I would like to be a judge at Tel Aviv's first Beer International Recognition Awards.

Pop cakes are the latest baking craze to come from the United States. A cross between a cake and a lollipop, they appeal to children and adults alike. They are easy to make with the right ingredients and this step-by-step guide.

Ingredients

● A sponge cake: home-made preferably (see cake recipe on this page) but shop-bought works

There is nothing that shouts spring like the first British asparagus. We leap on it in April, steaming, simmering or slathering it with vinaigrette and hollandaise, and mourning the fact it will all be over by June.

But now M&S have found a way to create a second British crop to make fresh asparagus an autumn treat as well.

Fasting is straightforward and we all do it pretty much the same. The Torah is quite clear. Put your human cravings to one side and focus on trying to obtain the highest level of spirituality through prayer and forgiveness. Nil by mouth. No food and no water from dusk to the following dusk. Simple. Not a lot of room for variation.

How we end the fast varies enormously.

There is no food more intrinsically connected with Rosh Hashanah than honey.

For millennia it has been eaten at the festival to symbolise our hopes for a good, sweet year.