3 min read
Each of the guests made the same comment, one by one. "You bought herring?" we asked our hostess, as nonplussed as if there had been a bacon butty or prawn cocktail beside the bagels.
Herring is one of the foods young British Jews just don't embrace. It may have graced the Kiddush tables of our Ashkenazi forefathers, survived the move from the shtetls to Brick Lane and beyond, and even, in the 1950s, been sold by Selfridges as a kosher delicacy - "lunch herrings with real lemon sauce", boasted an advert in the JC's 1952 Pesach edition. But nowadays? Give us aubergine with tahini, or quinoa mixed with roasted vegetables.
In my experience few Jews in their 20s can be found serving such Ashkenazi staples as kreplach, holishkes, lokshen pudding, chrain or tsimmes; foods that were the bread and butter of our grandparents' generation. "Really tasty Cocktail Gefilte Fish fried will make you the hostess with the mostest" announced a JC advert for the kosher retailer Biedak in 1958. Despite the subtitle "an important message to Jewish housewives", I can't imagine modern hosts buying into that claim… Unless they were trying to be ironic; in trendy Williamsburg there's a sushi place that serves Matzoh Ball Ramen.
These days, we have our challah dipped in hummus or guacamole, not chopped liver; we enjoy falafel rather than fish balls. We eat pomegranate seeds so frequently that they no longer serve as the new fruit come Rosh Hashanah. It's goodbye Evelyn Rose and hello Ottolenghi and the Persiana cookbook; goodbye to the cuisine of the East End and hello the flavours of the east.
True, we haven't rejected all the old favourites. As a vegetarian, I'm an outlier in that I'll steer clear of most Jewish heritage foods, but chicken soup, smoked salmon and even chulent are not off the menu for others. Mrs Ellswood still makes an appearance alongside the gourmet olives; apple crumble and honey cake have not gone by the wayside. Salt beef sandwiches remain popular, albeit Blooms is no longer.
Perhaps it's too early to declare chopped herring over
Nevertheless, modern Ashkenazi Jews want variety; a Shabbat lunch focused on roast chicken and potatoes is passé, traded for colourful salads, saffron rice, shawarma and tagines.
These are, of course, not un-Jewish foods; for Sephardim they are perhaps the equivalent of herring or borscht. But this shift is less down to an awakened Sephardi loyalty among Jews of Polish, German or Russian descent, and more that as a generation we are culturally assimilated, influenced by the wider foodie trends of the moment, from Instagrammed clean eating to Middle Eastern street food.
Like the hats we wear in shul and the tunes we bench to, food is subject to the vagaries of fashion. And with Israel exerting a powerful cultural influence over British Jewry, is it a surprise we are so enamoured with the flavours of the region? Nor is this a singularly Jewish issue; I'd imagine the Waitrose-infused Christmases of today are far removed from the fare of festive meals past.
And yet, food is so very central to Jewish life, at the core of how we observe our religion and adhere to its rules, from what we can't eat on Pesach to what we can on Shavuot. Breaking with how our ancestors broke bread feels a little like rejecting a central part of our history. Are we losing a part of our identity as we consign these favourites to the recipe book of history? What does it mean if our Yom Tov meals bear little resemblance to those of our great-grandparents?
As a product of history and tragedy, most Ashkenazi Jews live very different lives to our ancestors; we grow up in western cities, not eastern shtetls, we work in business, not the land, we have a Jewish homeland rather than agitating for one.
Our connection to those centuries where towns across the Pale were at the epicentre of Jewish life is diminishing with every generation.
In time, there will be no living memory of this world, and food is perhaps the last link in the chain. There's something quite poignant about that.
But perhaps it's too early to declare the chopped herring over. Indeed, as with Yiddish, there are plenty of people invested in maintaining historic Jewish culture. At Gefiltefest this weekend there will be a babka-making session, among other celebrations of our culinary heritage.
In years to come, maybe we'll look back at our couscous dishes as being old hat and tuck in to herring instead. Food for thought, as you enjoy your Friday night meal.
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