by Gil Marks
Salt
Common salt (sodium chloride) is a crystalline compound produced by the reaction of a base (sodium hydroxide) with an acid (hydrogen chloride). Salt, unlike other foods and spices, is inorganic; it is a mineral component of the oceans that cover three-fourths of the earth's surface.
Salt, an essential part of life on earth, helps in the contraction of muscles and transmission of nerve impulses, and without it living cells would quickly expire from dehydration. This mineral's two components, sodium and chloride, are essential nutrients. In addition to nutritional requirements, salt constitutes one of the four tastes on the human taste buds, reflecting its biological necessity and ensuring humans' positive natural reaction to it. Besides its value as a seasoning, salt also serves as a flavor enhancer and balancer, making other items taste better, and is therefore added to most dishes, both savory and sweet. Salt is of great importance in leavened breads—it enhances the elastic properties of gluten and controls yeast, allowing the bread to rise and making it taste better.
Common salt is obtained by two methods: Mines on land contain the residue of ancient seas that yield a type called halite, and contemporary seawater is evaporated to produce a type called saline. Around the eighth century CE, the advent of pumps and sluices to speed up the evaporation of seawater, producing coarse granules, led to a dramatic increase in the amount of salt available in those ocean areas with no salt mines.
Table salt, like rock salt, is obtained from mine deposits, but it is processed to remove impurities and then ground into small granules. Sea salt is produced from sea water by means of evaporation; it is not refined. All salt is kosher. "Kosher salt," sometimes called coarse salt, is named for its use in kashering, as it is used for drawing blood from meat and poultry. Salt for kashering must be medium grain so it doesn't bounce off or dissolve too quickly.
Salt is also the earliest and still most widely used preservative. Before electricity, vacuum packing, and other advances of modern technology, salt was an imperative for the human food supply. It was used to cure meat and fish for longtime storage, and to discourage the growth of harmful bacteria; it also allowed the survival of flavor-producing bacteria for lacto-fermentation in staple vegetables, such as cabbage, cucumbers, beets, and olives. Salted meat was the forerunner of corned beef and other classic delicatessen meats. The English word pickle is derived from pokel, a Teutonic word for salt. Pickled and cured foods were a way to extend a short growing season. They were portable, so people could travel great distances without having to stop to hunt or forage. The need for salt sparked international commerce, which originally evolved primarily to trade or obtain salt, as well as many wars.
In the ancient world, salt was a limited resource in many regions and was thus an expensive item, more treasured than gold. In Egypt, where depictions of the salt-making process date back to 1450 BCE, salt was obtained from the evaporation of seawater in shallow pans along the Mediterranean coast, as well as from mines in the eastern and western deserts. In Roman times, the army, which was in charge of guarding salt shipments and storehouses, was once paid in salt—salary (literally "salt money" in Latin) thus became the term for fixed compensation. Many of the earliest towns grew up near salt deposits and early trade routes developed in response to the salt trade. The Latin sal and English word salt are derived from As-Salt, a town once located several miles east of the Jordan River.
Israel was blessed with an abundance of salt, from both sides. The port of Caesarea served as one of the major sites of salt exports to Rome. Mount Sedom, a ten-mile stretch on the western shore of the southern Dead Sea, offered an abundant supply of salt, as did pools and mounds around the Dead Sea, in Hebrew, Yam ha'Melach (Salt Sea). Herod's fortress of Masada served to protect and control the Dead Sea salt supply route. In addition, sea salt came from shallow coastal salt pans along the Mediterranean Sea. Thus salt, although still precious, was never unobtainable or exorbitantly priced in Israel. Medieval Jews were commonly involved in salt production and trade.
The most prominent salt in ancient Israel was melach sedomit (Sodom salt), a sea salt possibly extracted from Mount Sedom. The Talmud listed it among the ingredients of the Temple incense. Sodom salt could be particularly caustic, engendering the practice of a ritual washing of the hands after a meal to protect the eyes from potential blindness. The Talmud contrasted Sodom salt with "istrokanit salt," which Rashi described as "mined and processed." The origin of the word istrokanit was probably serak (desert/barren land); istrokanit denotes the coarser mined halite, in contrast to the flaky saline from the sea.
The Bible contains numerous references to salt, melach in Hebrew, derived from the root "to rub small/to reduce to dust." Lot's wife famously turned into a netziv melach (pillar of salt) as the family fled the destruction of Sodom and she stopped to look back. All the offerings in the Temple, both flour and meat, before coming into contact with the altar, had to be salted. In addition, salt was also sprinkled on the ramp to the altar to prevent the barefoot priests from slipping. Thus the Temple required massive amounts of salt on a daily basis, necessitating three chambers on the southern side of the Temple courtyard: one where salt was stored and prepared for the offerings, another where the animal hides were salted and processed, and a third where the animal parts were rinsed and cleaned. Among the provisions of the Persian king Artaxerxes (c. 458 BCE) for the needs of the newly rebuilt Temple was "unlimited salt."
The Talmud noted that as long as the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel, but upon its destruction, the home table atones, when the poor are invited as guests. Rabbi Moses Isserles, referring to the custom of dipping the first piece of bread in salt, explained that salt is placed on the table before making the benediction Hamotzi over bread, "because the table is like the altar and eating is like an offering." Many families dip the karpas of the Passover Seder into salt water and some also eat hard-boiled eggs in salt water. Salt, the ultimate condiment, and bread, the staff of life, are the customary Jewish housewarming gifts. Thus salt remains not only a condiment, but also part of Jewish life and ritual.
Sambusak
Sambusak is a fried or baked turnover made with pastry or yeast dough.
Origin: Middle East
Other names: Arabic: fatayar; Farsi: sanbusa, sanbusaj, sambuse; India: samosa; Syria: bastel; Turkey: börek.
In the bread-loving Middle East, medieval cooks began enhancing basic bread dough by spreading rounds of dough with spiced ground meat, making dishes such as the medium-sized open-faced pizzas sfeeha and lahmajin (literally "meat with dough"). Cooks who lacked a horizontal baking surface folded the edges of the dough over the ground beef and deep-fried the pastry in fat, transforming it into a turnover with a distinctive crisp, rich crust that contrasted with the moist filling. Turnovers are flavorful, convenient, and portable. Small pastries make a tasty appetizer and a large one can be a substantial side dish or a meal in itself. Because turnovers could be prepared anywhere by anyone who had a pot, enough fat, and a fire, they emerged as common street food throughout much of the Middle East. Travelers could easily fry up a batch around a campfire at night, reserving the leftovers as provisions for the next day. For the poor, filled pastries provided a tasty way to stretch scarce resources or use up leftovers, while the wealthy loved refined versions for their flavor. Later, the turnovers were also baked.
The earliest known of these Middle Eastern turnovers is sanbusak or sanbusaj; the name derived from the Farsi sanbusa (triangular) with the diminutive ending ak, connoting a Persian origin. The most common Sephardic pronunciation is sambusak. Sambusak is most probably the forerunner of most medieval pastry turnovers, including the northern Iberian empanada as well as the Italian calzone.
The first written record of sanbusak dates back to early ninth-century Iraq; Arabs subsequently spread the pastry from India to Spain. In India, by at least 1300, fried turnovers filled with meat and onion appeared as the samosa; these were still typically triangular. In the opposite direction
, the dish reached Spain by at least the thirteenth century. An anonymous Andalusian cookbook of that time contained a Moorish recipe for "Sanbûsak," a turnover fried in oil.
The original sambusak consisted of pieces of bread dough folded over a meat filling into a triangular shape and fried in sesame oil, a form that predominated well into the fourteenth century. Eventually, since rolling a ball of dough more naturally and easily forms a round rather than a square, the half-moon emerged as the prevailing version. As newer types of pastry developed, they were frequently substituted for the yeast dough. Yeast dough versions, however, remain extremely popular in Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi communities. Although some yeast-dough turnovers continue to be cooked in hot oil, especially those containing meat fillings, in our fat-conscious era, most sambusak are now baked. The quality of a housewife's culinary skills was once measured by her preparation of sambusak and the crimping and fluting of the edges. Significantly, sambusak fell from favor among most non-Jews in its native Iran around the seventeenth century, but retained is popularity among many Persian Jews.
Cheese, typically very salty types, has long been the most common filling for Jews, but vegetables, particularly spinach, chard, and pumpkin, are also popular. Leeks, onions, and potatoes are all used individually or paired with other flavors. Iraqi Jews specialize in chickpea fillings, adding some ground chicken or meat for the festivals and using only chickpeas for pareve occasions. Although most fillings are savory, there are a few popular versions made with sweet fillings, most notably almond (sambusak bil loz) and walnut with cardamom (sambusak b'shikir). Little date- or nut-filled pies are called baba bi tamar or klaicha in Iraq and kasmay in Kurdistan. The Jews of Calcutta also developed a sweetened coconut filling.
Turnovers—sambusaks, borekas, and empanadas— became a traditional part of the Sephardic Sabbath, as well as ubiquitous at most Middle Eastern celebrations. Meat sambusak is traditional on the Sabbath and Sukkot and cheese sambusak on Hanukkah and dairy meats. On Shavuot sambusak is symbolic of a Torah scroll—it is covered on the outside and the essence is inside. Sweetened almond or walnut filling is popular for holidays, especially Purim. Iraqis and Kurds feature chickpea sambusak on special occasions, such as for Purim; the chickpeas are a reminder of Queen Esther, who in order to keep kosher while living in the palace, only ate legumes and other produce.
Middle Easterners brought the sambusak to modern Israel where, generally under the name borekas, it became a popular snack, street food, school lunch item, and a standard in mezzes (appetizer assortments). Most Mizrachi affairs feature them. To share the burden of preparing for a special function, all the women of a family or perhaps a group of friends will spend a day rolling, filling, and crimping large batches of turnovers while socializing.
(See also Boreka, Empanada, Klaicha, and Pastelito)
Samsa
Samsa is a baked or fried dumpling.
Origin: Uzbekistan
Other names: somsa.
The cuisine of central Asia was greatly affected by its two powerful and gastronomically advanced neighbors, Persia and China. An indispensible feature of Bukharan cooking is filled dough dishes from both of those empires, variously deep-fried, pan-fried, steamed, boiled, and baked. Fried and baked filled dumplings are descended from the Persian sambusak and are called samsa. Today, samsa stands can be found all over Uzbekistan and most traditional bakeries sell them along with the local flatbreads, while many home cooks also prepare their own pastries.
Samsa is made in two basic shapes: triangular and round. Frying the dumplings produces a crisp texture, caramelized flavor, and rich color. Fried samsa have a simple, thin dumpling skin (called pi in Chinese and gyoza in Japan) notable for the absence of eggs. Since oil and other frying mediums were at a premium in Uzbekistan, baked versions became the more widespread. Similar to wontons, these dumplings typically include some egg and sometimes baking powder in the dough for tenderness. They are usually baked on the inner wall of a tandor (vertical clay oven), a device also introduced by the Persians. Aficionados inspect the shape of the samsa, turning them over to scrutinize whether they are golden on the bottom or blackened, the latter indicating inferior culinary skills.
Bukharan samsa are very mildly spiced, although a favorite condiment is hot pepper sauce. In Uzbekistan, the filling is typically made with the tail fat of sheep instead of oil. Meat was the original filling, but potatoes emerged as an inexpensive substitute and a sweetened walnut mixture became popular for special occasions. A few types of samsa are seasonal—spinach and other young greens are used in fillings in the spring, and qowoq (a winter squash) or pumpkin is popular during the autumn. Kuk samsa (kuk means "green" in Uzbek), contain various fresh herbs.
Samsa are an everyday snack, typically served with tea or soup, as well as at feasts. Fried samsa with meat filling are traditional on Hanukkah and Purim.
(See also Sambusak)
Sardine
There is no such fish as a sardine. The word first appeared around 1430, as a diminutive of the Latin sarda from the ancient Greek name for the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, Sardo. Sardine has come to refer to the immature members of several varieties of small oily fish, most notably young pilchards, relatives of herring and anchovies. In the eastern Atlantic, pilchards tend to grow larger and live longer than relatives in the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean region, where, for thousands of years sardines have been caught in vast numbers, they have long served a role similar to that of the herring farther north, providing protein for the poor.
Sardines are common in the cooking of Mediterranean Jews, primarily as everyday fare. As they are rather small, sardines require three or more per serving as an appetizer. Fresh sardines, simply scaled and gutted, are most popularly grilled, but are also dredged in flour and fried. Greeks grill the fish wrapped in grape leaves (yaprakites de sardela). Sephardim marinate them in wine vinegar and lemon juice, then serve them atop a salad with hard-boiled eggs. Italians make a variation by sautéing onions, raisins, and pine nuts, then marinating fried sardines in the mixture. Algerians fry sardines, cover them with a spicy sauce (scabetch), and let them marinate for a day.
The sardine catch typically surpassed the amount that could be used fresh and, therefore, for millennia the remaining fish were scaled, gutted, salted, and dried. Before being eaten, the dried fish had to be soaked in water for at least an hour to soften the fish and remove the excess saltiness. Fish were first canned in the 1820s, and sardines were among the initial types used for this purpose; they were typically packed in oil as a preservative and flavor enhancer. In the early twentieth century, a Sabbath meal on the Lower East Side of Manhattan sometimes consisted of a can of sardines and hard-boiled eggs. Later, when economic situations improved, canned sardines emerged as indispensible for Jewish travelers, providing kosher food when little else was available.
Sauerbraten
Sauerbraten is a slow-cooked beef pot roast that is marinated in vinegar and sometimes wine before cooking.
Origin: Germany
In the time before the advent of artificial refrigeration, meat tended to spoil relatively quickly. In the Rhineland and southwest Germany, cooks learned how to forestall rotting or salvage minimally spoiled meat by pickling it in vinegar. Meat prepared in this way was called sauerbraten from sauer, German for "sour," and braten, meaning "to roast," the compound word denoting a tangy pot roast. Modern cooks, relying on refrigeration as well as acid, substitute red wine for some of the vinegar for a milder, more flavorful sauce. The meat is marinated for two to three days before cooking; the longer it sits in the marinade, the more intensely sour it will be. Whereas many Germans originally used horsemeat or venison, and some still do today, Jews always substituted beef. Jews, in the style of the Rhineland, also tended to add lebkuchen (now replaced with gingersnaps) or sugar to create a sweet-and-sour flavor and thicken the broth. The secret to good sauerbraten is the balance of its numerous assertive flavors—the vinegar should not overwhelm the meat
. Sauerbraten is related to the eastern European essig fleisch, although the latter is not marinated.
German immigrants brought the dish to America in the nineteenth century. The first record of the word in English is a recipe for "Sauerbraten" in the cookbook Aunt Babette's (Cincinnati, 1889), reflecting the author's German Jewish heritage.
For many Germans, sauerbraten was a favorite comfort food. In America, some eastern Ashkenazim adopted the Teutonic sauerbraten, which became a popular Hanukkah treat, appeared as occasional Friday night fare, and was common in American Jewish cookbooks of the time. In the 1932 animated film "Minnie the Moocher" by Jewish immigrants from Kraków, Poland, Max and Dave Fleischer, a pair of overweight Germanic parents, chastise the thin Betty Boop for not eating her sauerbraten, reflecting the Fleischers' own feelings of disconnection between the Old World and the New. However, as the twentieth century progressed, sauerbraten's assertive flavors fell out of fashion. Sauerbraten's popularity faded and it was replaced by the milder American pot roast and eastern European brisket.
Sauerbraten is usually served with spaetzle or wide noodles and braised red cabbage.
German Sour Pot Roast (Sauerbraten)
8 to 10 servings
[MEAT]
Marinade:
2 cups dry red wine, such as Pinot Noir or Burgundy
1½ cups water
½ cup red wine vinegar
2 medium yellow onions, sliced
2 medium carrots, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
5 to 7 whole black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
3 to 6 whole juniper or allspice berries (optional)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds (optional)
1 (4- to 6-pound) boneless beef chuck roast
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup (about 5 ounces) finely ground gingersnaps