The Art of Jewish Cooking

In this book you will find some recipes which specify the use of either butter or fat. If you wish to cook according to strict dietary observances, you will cook such dishes with fat if they are to accompany meat, with butter if they accompany dairy products.

For observers of the Kashrath: With regard to all recipes having liver as an ingredient, it should be noted that the liver is first to be broiled over an open flame.

Since I am neither Josephine McCarthy nor Clementine Paddleford, you may well ask what I am doing writing an introduction to this cookbook.

Well, I’ve been around kitchens all my life—my father saw to that—and certainly I am an authority on the cooking done by the author of this particular book, Jennie Grossinger. I’ve been an ardent admirer of her cookery all the years of my life. For she is my mother.

More than most women, Mom had to be a good cook. For if a good cook is the heart of the American home, how much more so is a good cook the heart of the American-plan hotel?

Mom is past the crying-over-the-onions and the dish-washing phases of cooking. Grossinger’s—the institution which her smile, her struggles, her love for people, and her way with a saucepan helped to build—now has a pretty good-sized crew of chefs and bottle-washers to handle such matters.

She and her mother, Malke Grossinger, assembled the recipes. My sainted grandmother used to say: “We must never let anyone go away from Grossinger’s hungry.” That guiding principle together with a characteristic warmth and humanity, a concern for people that went far beyond the ordinary hotel owner-guest relationship are perhaps the two cornerstones that helped build a resort that now sprawls over 1,000 acres of God’s good earth and is known in the furthest corners of the globe.

Ever since I can remember, Grossinger women have taken pride in their activities in that most important room of the house, pride and joy in placing on their tables food that was as good as it was plentiful. And it even goes back beyond the days that I can remember.

For it comes down to this. French cuisine may be famous for its Escoffier. Italian for its Alfredo. But Jewish cooking—well, for generations and generations, way back to Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, the master chef has always been the mistress of the particular tent: Mom.

Mother used to tell me about her early days on New York’s crowded East Side, when she came to this country as a seven-year-old immigrant girl. She remembers the hallways of the ancient tenements on Hester and Essex streets not for their dinginess, although there was plenty of that. She recalls the cooking aromas wafted out from beneath apartment doors when she came home from public school.

On the ground floor, perhaps the corned beef and cabbage of an Irish family, heavy and pungent. On the next landing, an Italian family—and the air would be full of the aromatic blending of ripe tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, oregano, and all kinds of other wonderful mouth-watering exotic scents.

But she was happy that the next doorway was hers, for it would have been impossible for her to pass it by. From behind it, came the delicate but rich Sabbath-preparation smells—of chicken simmering in the pot, of golden soup with feather-light matzo balls floating in it, maybe even the delicious aroma of freshly baked challah.

Food has always been important to the Jewish family, not for itself alone—although it is certainly appreciated—but as a gift from the Lord, which therefore gives it special significance at the most important occasions in life. At a wedding, the bride and groom eat something sweet—for a sweet life together. And the same is true on the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashonah—this time, for a sweet year.

A Jewish cookbook can be almost considered a history book—a history of 5700 years of happiness and sorrow. Just one instance—the
latke
(pancake), which the wives of the soldiers of the ancient hero Judah Maccabee hurriedly cooked for their men behind the lines, as they united to drive the Syrians out of their land.

Italian cooking is built around pasta, the traditional tomato sauce, and olive oil and special spices; Mexican cooking around hot foods, corns, peppers; French around wine. If you tire of these things, you might as well leave the country. But Jewish cooking, since the kettles of the Hebrews have simmered in every country of the world since the Dispersion many centuries ago—is never monotonous, but thoroughly international in flavor. All it requires is good ingredients and plenty of them.

Jewish cooking is truly a Melting Pot. It has tasted of the spices of Italy, the herbs of the Slavic countries, the tender lamb of Israel, and the goulash of Hungary and middle Europe. Yes, and the potatoes of Ireland, as the Lord Mayor of Dublin testified when he visited Grossinger’s. All these things, adapted to the requirements of Jewish law, were brought to the American melting pot by immigrants of the Jewish faith. All these things have made Jewish cooking worldly and sophisticated—though always “home” style—and particularly delicious.

Lin Yutang once wrote something which, it might be argued, belongs in a Chinese cookbook, but I kind of like it and so I shall borrow it for our purposes here:

“If a man be sensible, and one fine morning, while he is lying in bed count at the tips of his fingers how many things in this life truly give him enjoyment, invariably he will find food is the first one.”

I don’t know whether you’ll agree with Lin Yutang. After all, there are some other pretty important enjoyments in life—children, for instance. But I think you will agree on one point. After you’ve sampled some of the recipes my mother suggests—all of which have either been tried by, used by, or approved by our Grossinger chefs—I think you’ll agree that there is plenty of the kind of enjoyment the words of Lin Yutang suggest in the pages of this book.

So, in Mom’s own words: “Hearty appetite!”

Paul Grossinger

In Jewish-style cookery, more so than in most other cuisines, recipes have been handed down for countless generations from mother to daughter. The basic recipes are similar, but each family group has its own variations, depending on its national origin, and always superior to anyone else’s, of course.

Jewish dishes are drawn from many lands. Each group has brought with it the traditional foods of its country of origin. From Czechoslovakia come dumplings and the widespread use of poppy seeds; from Poland, the classic pirogen; Germany has supplied gefilte fish and pancakes; goulash was introduced from Hungary; the favorite herring preparations from Holland. In their wanderings, these dishes have been modified and reworked to become a part of what is generically called “Jewish-style cooking.” It is interesting to note that this assimilation process is still going on. You will find recipes for pizza, chicken chow mein, chicken Cantonese, egg roll and chile con carne in this book, their presence a testimonial to the ready acceptance of new dishes into an ancient tradition of cooking.

Many of the favorite Jewish dishes have found their places on American menus across the country. People who formerly believed that Jewish cookery was complicated and bizarre have found it well-flavored, easily prepared and delicious.

Jewish holidays usually offer special dishes, often with interesting customs in connection with their observance. Rosh Hashonah (the Day of Judgment) marks the beginning of the New Year and sweet dishes are symbolically served to foretell a happy (and sweet) year. Honey cake is a traditional treat and one of the many different styles of
tzimmes
is a regular part of the holiday’s menu.

Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is a fast day, so the meal served before sundown of the preceding day is always substantial, but quite bland—to prevent undue thirst. A typical dinner might include chicken soup, boiled chicken, stewed fruit, sponge cake and tea.

Succoth (the Festival of the Tabernacles) is the week-long festival celebrating the gathering of the harvest, a holiday analogous to Thanksgiving. This is a happy holiday with bountiful meals and an air of celebration.
Kreplach
and stuffed cabbage are two of the favorite dishes for this holiday. Emphasis is customarily placed upon fruits and nuts, the produce of a good harvest.

Chanukah (the Festival of Lights) is an eight-day celebration. Gifts are exchanged in a general atmosphere of gaiety. Potato and cheese pancakes are always prepared for the family, and a selection of rich cakes and cookies are served to guests. Purim is a light-hearted one-day holiday and the specialties are the same today as they have been for countless centuries:
hamentaschen, knishes
and poppy-seed candies.