by Gil Marks
During the Middle Ages, as eggs gained wider convention in the Ashkenazic kitchen, they also took on various symbolic meanings and usages. In Jewish tradition, eggs are cited as the only food that becomes harder as it is cooked, while the eggshell is noted as being, paradoxically, both resilient and fragile. Thus eggs are symbolic of Jewish history, as well as of fertility and life and death. Hard-boiled eggs are customarily served at all somber occasions, including the meals preceding major fasts and a Seudat Havra'ah (the meal following a funeral). A roasted hard-boiled egg is used on the Passover Seder plate to commemorate the Chagigah (festival offering) that was presented in the Temple. Many Ashkenazim also traditionally start the Seder meal with hard-boiled eggs in salt water, while Sephardim feature the ubiquitous huevos haminados; these customs probably derived from the Roman practice of starting feasts with eggs.
(See also Bird, Chicken, Chizhipizhi, Fritada, Goose, Haminado/Huevos Haminados, Ijeh, and Kuku)
Egg Cream
In 1996, Brooklyn-born musician Lou Reed, reminiscing about the 1950s New York of his childhood, wrote a song entitled "Egg Cream," which begins with these lines:
When I was a young man, no bigger than this
A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed
Some U-Bet's chocolate syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk
You stir it up into a heady fro, tasted just like silk.
In 1890, a little more than a century before this song was written, Louis Auster, a young Jewish recent immigrant, was experimenting at the soda fountain in his tiny candy store on the Lower East Side when he mixed a few ingredients and concocted what would become New York's iconic drink. Despite its name, there is neither egg nor cream in an egg cream. The term was first used by Lettice Bryan in The Kentucky Housewife (1839) for a custard and later appeared in the Modern Guide for Soda Dispensers (1896) for a syrup made from eggs and cream, but no chocolate.
The New York term most probably came from the egg-white-like foam that rose to the top in a properly-prepared drink when the spritz of carbonated water met the velvety-textured brown liquid below. Auster kept his recipe secret and clandestinely concocted his own chocolate syrup, which, until his death, he made in a room in his store with darkened windows to prevent observation. One of Auster's sons later revealed that among the egg cream's original ingredients were seltzer, cocoa, sugar, and milk. Auster began selling his new drink for three cents and was soon averaging three thousand sales on a hot day, with customers frequently lined up around the block. He eventually added four other locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, which were run by his children.
Competitors began offering their own versions of the drink, some even containing eggs and/or cream. Eventually, a somewhat uniform recipe evolved, made with Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup, created by Herman and Ida Fox in Brooklyn in 1895. (Today, there is even a kosher-for-Passover version of Fox's chocolate syrup.) By the 1920s, the egg cream was standard at all soda fountains throughout New York City.
When Fox's U-Bet syrup—a staple for classic egg creams—introduced a kosher-for-Passover version, egg creams suddenly became a widespread Passover treat.
None of Auster's grandchildren went into the family business and the stores closed following the founder's death in 1955. Around this time, soda fountains began disappearing and by the end of the 1960s few of the surviving stores knew how to make a proper egg cream. In addition, a classic egg cream contains no additional sugar than that in the syrup and, as the twentieth century progressed, America's tastes tended toward sweeter beverages. Consequently, by the end of the twentieth century, the egg cream had lost much of its stature. To New Yorkers born before that time, however, it remains an integral nostalgic component of their childhood.
Egg Cream
1 serving
[DAIRY]
To produce a proper egg cream with a 2-inch head of thick white foam, you need a siphon bottle. Do not sip an egg cream through a straw—as you will miss the texture of the foam—but directly from the glass.
2 tablespoons Fox's chocolate syrup
1/3 cup whole milk, chilled
2/3 to 1 cup seltzer (from a pressurized bottle), slightly chilled
Pour the chocolate syrup into a chilled 12-ounce glass. Do not use a paper cup. Slowly add the milk, but do not stir. Spritz in enough seltzer down the center of the glass to form a foamy head that nearly reaches the top of the glass. Using a long spoon, stir with an up-and-down motion to blend without deflating the foam.
Eggplant
"My food [the eggplant] is the most praised, better than the tomato!" (From a popular Ladino folksong, "Si Savesh la Buena Djente" [Dear People, Do You Know of the Battle of the Vegetables?], depicting a dispute between the two favorite vegetables of the Sephardim, an eggplant and a tomato.)
The eggplant is actually a large berry, although usually it is consumed as a vegetable. The original European eggplant cultivar was small, white (sometimes with purple streaks), and ovate—hence the American name, which was only first recorded in England in the seventeenth century. Another early English name for the eggplant was Jew's apple, denoting its usage among Sephardim. In the eighteenth century, the French word for eggplant, aubergine, supplanted the name eggplant in Britain. Since the white type bruised easily, the purple hybrid became the most widespread, although white eggplants are still very popular in India and are available in some Western markets.
The eggplant is a native of southeast Asia and it has been cultivated in India for more than four thousand years. The plant's path can be traced backward through its French name, aubergine, derived from the Catalan alberginia, which comes from the Arabic al-batinjan by way of the Persian badenjan, which itself comes from the Sanskrit vatin-ganah (antiflatulence vegetable). By the fourth century CE, the eggplant had arrived in Persia, where it was initially disregarded, but eventually became a favorite vegetable. In the eighth or ninth century, the Arabs began spreading the plant westward. Eggplant was among the dishes served at the wedding of Buran, daughter of Al-Mamun, the caliph of Baghdad; this reflected its acceptance by the upper class. It probably reached Spain in the late ninth century, where it was enthusiastically received and soon appeared in numerous Moorish and Sephardic recipes. In the fifteenth century, during the Spanish Inquisition, a sign of "eating Jewish" was a preference for eggplants.
The attitude was very different, however, in the rest of Europe, where eggplant was considered poisonous and utilized only as a garden ornament. Indeed, the Italian name for eggplant, melanzana, and the Greek, melitzane, came from its sixteenth-century scientific classification as mala insana (mad apple), an identity derived from its membership in the nightshade family. Jewish exiles fleeing southern Spain in 1146, and again fleeing from Spain and Spanish-controlled Sicily and southern Italy in 1492, helped to popularize the eggplant, bringing it and numerous eggplant dishes to northern Italy and much of the Mediterranean. This strikingly beautiful vegetable became a staple of the lighter and more varied cookery of the Mediterranean, where it is beloved today by every level of society. The few areas in which Ashkenazim developed a fondness for eggplant were under Turkish control notably Romania, or areas nearby, such as Ukraine.
The rich texture of the versatile eggplant makes it an ideal meat substitute. Cooked eggplant has a subtle flavor that is deliciously complemented by a large variety of assertive seasonings, including lemon, vinegar, garlic, goat cheese, yogurt, and tahini (sesame seed paste). Eggplant can be prepared in an extensive variety of ways—Turks claim more than thirty different basic methods—including fried, roasted, baked, grilled, boiled, stuffed, marinated, pickled, simmered, and stewed. Today, Turkey produces more eggplants than all of Europe.
Eggplant is certainly the most popular vegetable in its native India, where numerous varieties, in an array of shapes and colors, are sold at almost every market. It has also long been a mainstay from central Asia through North Africa. Georgians incorporate it into a myriad of stews, salads, and relishes. Syrians love stuffed eggp
lants, pickled baby eggplants, and even candied eggplant. Iraqis use grilled slices for a sandwich called sabich. Moroccans serve it in tagines with couscous and make it into a slightly sweet eggplant jam.
From Turkey came eggplant-based vegetables stews—generally incorporating several American natives, notably peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini— including the Turkish and Romanian guvetch and Provençal ratatouille. Sephardim serve plain or marinated fried eggplant slices cold as part of a Sabbath lunch and mezze (appetizer assortment) or warm as a side dish, usually accompanied with a tomato sauce or labni (yogurt cheese). They also use it in casseroles (such as alboronia), stews, salads, omelets, and pickles; as a pastry filling; and even for confections.
Middle Easterners have long made mashed salads from various cooked vegetables, but following the introduction of the Indian eggplant by the Persians, it became the most popular base. Versions of salata batinjan (eggplant salad), also called caviare d'aubergines (eggplant caviar) in the Maghreb, are common from India to Morocco. The most famous one, made with tahini (sesame seed paste), is probably the Lebanese baba ghanouj. The Ottomans, during their occupation of the Balkans and Hungary, introduced eggplant, which eventually spread to Ukraine and parts of Russia, emerging as the favorite type of ikra (vegetable "caviar").
Today, there are many versions of stuffed eggplant, and numerous names for it, including the Sephardic berengena rellenas and medias de berengena, Turkish patlican dolmasi, Bulgarian merendjen a inchidos, Greek dolmas de melitzanes, Arabic batinjan mahshi, and Hebrew chatzilim memulim. Meat fillings are generally reserved for special occasions, while cheese is more common during the week. Meat-stuffed eggplant is a Sabbath and special-occasion dish, particularly prominent on Sukkot as stuffed foods symbolize abundance.
There were numerous eggplant casseroles, including the Turkish sakayu/saqu, Romanian musaca de vinete, and Greek moussaka. Greeks, as a result of French influences, began adding a layer of milk-based béchamel sauce to their moussaka, but traditional Jews continued to make it the old-fashioned and kosher way with just eggplant and ground meat. Many Middle Easterners prefer a sweet-and-sour eggplant casserole (ingria or engreyee), with lemon juice or tamarind. Tomatoes were a relatively late, but very popular, addition. Sweet-and-sour eggplant casseroles became a favorite festival fare in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Mumbai. Eggplant casseroles are particularly prevalent on Sukkot, but they are also popular as Sabbath fare.
The early Zionist settlers discovered the eggplant in Ottoman-controlled Palestine and soon adopted some of the Turkish eggplant dishes. During the period of tzena (austerity) following the founding of Israel in 1948, chatzilim (eggplant) was one of the few plants grown in any quantity. Government sources and newspapers promoted eggplant recipes, so it became commonplace and some of the dishes emerged as iconic. Today, eggplant remains a prominent feature of Israeli cuisine. Israelis regard eggplant as Polish Jews once did the potato: as an essential food that can be prepared in a myriad of ways.
Einbren
Einbren is browned flour, used to thicken sauces, gravies, soups, and stews.
Origin: Germany
A mark of medieval cooking was the use of pieces of bread to thicken sauces, gravies, soups, and stews, resulting in rather crude and coarse dishes. Although flour thickens the liquids better than bread, it also imparts a disagreeable raw flour taste and tends to form lumps. Then in the seventeenth century cooks discovered that they could remove the raw taste and preserve the flour's thickening capability by mixing it with a fat and then cooking the mixture until it turned golden or reddish. The invention of this flour and fat mixture—called balsamella in Italy, mehlschwitze in Germany, zaprashka in Polish, and roux in France— proved a milestone in culinary history, marking the transition point between medieval and modern cooking. With the advent of roux in place of bread as a thickener, sauces—the glory of haute cuisine—and soups entered a new, more refined era in which they were capable of achieving a lusciously smooth texture. Using a roux, cooks could obtain the maximum thickening capacity with a minimum amount of flour and no detrimental effects on the flavor.
An alternative was simply browning the flour in a dry pan, a process called einbren in Yiddish (ein means "a/one" and brenn "burn" in German); this removes the raw flour taste as well as creates a nutty flavor. Until well into the twentieth century, Ashkenazic housewives browned one to two cups of flour at once and stored it in a jar in a cool place and, when needed, added a little to dishes such as gedempte fleisch (pot roast), tzimmes, and carp in brown sauce to thicken and flavor the dish.
Cooking flour in a dry skillet, however, has its drawbacks, as it tends to smoke after about five minutes and requires at least twenty to thirty minutes, and nearly constant stirring to reach a light brown shade; the long cooking time reduces the flour's thickening ability to half that of white flour. In addition, the nutty flavor is undesirable in some dishes.
Eingemacht
Eingemacht is a jam and preserve, made from fruit or root vegetables, such as beets and black radishes.
Origin: Germany
Other names: ayngemachts.
Among the verses in a nineteenth-century eastern European Yiddish folk song about a couple marrying off their youngest child is "This is how, this is how, we marry off our children, mit a sloy ayngemachts [with a jar of preserves], witness the Lord's miracles." The last line of the song is "I am marrying off my youngest now, and am through with poverty."
The Yiddish word eingemacht comes from the German eingemachtes (from einmachen, "to preserve"). These preserves and jams (preserves have large pieces of produce) consist of chunks of fruits and vegetables cooked in honey or sugar. Those made with fruit, such as raspberries or cherries, are called frucht eingemachts. Following Sukkot, citrons were cooked into an esrig eingemachts.
More commonly, eingemachts were made with root vegetables. In northern Europe, little produce was available in the winter through early spring, except the various root vegetables stored over the winter in cellars or mounds of dirt. Consequently, for generations, in the days preceding Passover, eastern Ashkenazic housewives would chop or grate the roots—notably beets, black radishes, carrots, and turnips—and cook them with honey and a touch of vinegar (in America, lemon juice) into eingemachts. With the popularization of the sugar beet—the first sugar beet factory was established in Kunem, Germany, now western Poland, in 1806—eingemachts became very inexpensive and subsequently housewives would typically cook up a huge pot of beet or other eingemachts for Passover use.
As the song reflects, eingemachts appeared at special occasions like wedding feasts, but in the nineteenth century, with affordable sugar, it became more commonplace as well. It was spread on bread and incorporated into various baked goods. Many people simply nibbled spoonfuls of eingemachts while sipping hot tea. In some communities, the rebbitzen (rabbi's wife) prepared a pot of frucht eingemachts and distributed some to the sick of the shtetl. A jar of eingemachts made a much-appreciated gift, akin to the contemporary practice of bringing a bottle of wine for future in-laws, a rebbe, or anyone you wanted to impress. Nevertheless, eingemachts played its most important role on Passover, when little else was available. A jar of eingemachts was once a common, if not a constant, sight on Ashkenazic Passover tables; it was spread on matza, matza pancakes, and matza brei; stuffed inside dumplings; and served as a relish with meat and chicken.
Eingemachts was also transformed into a traditional confection called pletzlach ("board" in Yiddish). The preserves were cooked a little longer, spread on a moistened marble slab or baking sheet, and set aside until firm. Then they were cut into diamond shapes and rolled in sugar. Those who could afford it, seasoned these confections with ground ginger, which was among the few spices common in northern Europe; these treats were called ingberlach (literally "little gingers").
The first edition of The Settlement Cookbook (Milwaukee, 1901) contains a recipe for "Radish or Beet Preserves (Russian Style)." Although in Europe eingemachts were eaten thro
ughout the year, immigrants in America typically reserved them for Passover.
After World War II, as more and more commercial kosher-for-Passover foods became available, including fruit preserves, and many Old World items were deemed old-fashioned, eingemachts became a rarity in most homes. Still, a few people did maintain the practice of bringing a jar of homemade eingemachts to a host when visiting, as well as offering some to guests. Variations of this venerable dish have recently appeared, under the name beet marmalade, in some trendy American restaurants and gourmet food magazines.
(See also Etrog (Citron), Ingberlach, and Pletzl)
Eastern European Beet Preserves (Burik Eingemachts)
about 5 cups
[PAREVE]
4 cups (28 ounces) sugar, or 3 cups sugar and 1 cup honey
¾ cup water
2 pounds (eight 2-inch) fresh beets or rosl beets, weighed without the greens, peeled and coarsely shredded (4 cups)
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 cup chopped blanched almonds, or ½ cup chopped blanched almonds and ½ cup chopped walnuts
1 to 3 teaspoons ground ginger or 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1. In a large pot, using a long-handled wooden spoon, stir the sugar and water over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to medium and bring to a boil. Add the beets and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour.
2. Add the lemon juice and zest and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the nuts and ginger and simmer, stirring occasionally to make sure the beets don't stick, until the syrup is thickened and the beets are translucent and reach a temperature of 220°F, about 15 minutes. The traditional method of testing doneness was to drop a little of the eingemachts on a chilled plate; if it sets up but moves slightly when the plate is tipped within a few minutes, it is done. If underdone, it will run; if overcooked it will be too thick to move.