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Kestaneli Kuzu (Lamb with Chestnuts)
February 11, 2018 March 22, 2018 ~ Jonathan Katz	~ 1 Comment
Kestaneli kuzu, served with rice and bread. (Photo mine, February 2018)
In my fourth year of college, I made the slightly unorthodox decision to study Turkish. Maybe it was because I loved Ottoman history, maybe because I loved the writing of Orhan Pamuk and Yaşar Kemal, and maybe because I was extremely obsessed with modern Turkish history for much of high school. Probably, it was for the food.So over the course of a year, I filled my elective slots in my schedule with an intensive Turkish language course. My Turkish is not fluent, but I have managed to get by in Turkey, watch a few delightful soap operas, and of course, read recipes.
A kestaneci, or roasted chestnut vendor, in Istanbul. (Photo Brian Russell via Creative Commons)
Much of Turkey's cuisine is very famous, but even more of it unfortunately rarely gets translated into English or taken outside Turkey. Turkish food is highly regional – after all, Turkey is a country twice the size of Montana with a huge diversity in climates, landscape, and crops. Turkish food also carries all the influences of the various ethnic groups, rulers, and trades the country has seen. In some ways, it is more accurate to talk about Turkish cuisines rather than a single tradition. In the north by the Black Sea, one finds heavy dishes with karalahana (collard greens) or pakla (corn bulgur). In the center, one finds deep meaty stews and gruels like the barley-based aşure. In the south, many dishes are prepared with tangy nar ekşisi (pomegranate molasses) and spicy peppers. Turks are often immensely proud of their home regions' delicacies. This diversity carries over to the Jewish cuisines of Turkey.
The Mayor Sinagogu in the city of Bursa. (Photo Türk Musevi Cemaatı via Creative Commons)
Turkish Jews – who before the 1940's were a major population in the country – are a diverse community: from Kurdish Jews in the East to Sephardim on the Mediterranean coast to Ashkenazim and Arab Jews who had fled persecutions or left economic turmoil further north or south. The vast majority of Turkish Jews are Sephardim, descendants of the Jews who were welcomed by the Ottoman sultan after the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Their cuisines vary significantly, but all make good use of the local products of Turkey's incredibly rich agriculture. I have found many of my favorite recipes from across the Jewish world in Turkish collections – from tripe soups to candied pumpkin. And now, I have another recipe to add to that list: kestaneli kuzu, lamb with chestnuts, beloved by Turks Jewish and Muslim alike.
Chestnuts on a tree – these are horse chestnuts, not the ones that are commonly eaten (photo Efraim Stochter via Creative Commons)
Chestnuts are found across the Mediterranean basin, but the ones most common today originate in the Taurus Mountains (Toros Dağları) of western Turkey. These have been eaten since ancient times, and are often found in Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ruins. In many poor mountain communities, they were the most common source of starch until the introduction of the potato. Indeed, in Turkish Sephardic cooking chestnuts make many appearances, especially in desserts. But this recipe, kestaneli kuzu, combines two old favorites: chestnuts and lamb stews. Jewish and non-Jewish Turks alike treasure this recipe for festivals, celebrations, and nice dinners alike.
Chopped chestnuts (with raisins hiding underneath) waiting to be added to the kestaneli kuzu. (Photo mine, February 2018)
In Turkey today, kestaneli kuzu is associated with the city of Bursa, as are all chestnut dishes, but it is common across much of the country. Jewish women often foraged in forests near their communities in Turkey (as they did for berries in Lithuania) and would include their finds in foods daily and festive alike. This dish, known widely among locals, was an easy way to use these finds. Today, this hearty stew remains common, and is particularly popular on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. A similar dish exists in Moroccan-French Jewish cooking – in fact, in Israel it is associated by some with Aryeh Deri, the disgraced co-founder of the religious Shas party. It is, apparently, his favorite dish. The recipe by his wife, Yaffa (née Cohen), became popular after being published a few years ago. Though I strongly disagree with Shas' religious-nationalist and conservative politics, the recipe is top-notch. (The recipe is cited below.)
I made a few small adjustments off the recipes I found in my research. Firstly, as do many Turks, I added raisins to the stew – which gives a lovely body to the dish and provides a sweet counterpoint to the starchy chestnuts and earthy lamb. The second decision I made was to use chestnuts that were already peeled and roasted and packaged – the quality does not suffer, and peeling chestnuts takes a lot of time. Besides, the chestnuts used for packaging are particularly starchy and tasty. The third, and most unorthodox, decision I made was to add a cup of sweet red wine to the stew – this adds a lovely undertone to all the other flavors and really brings out the meatiness in the lamb. Of course, I have written this recipe in English. Enjoy, or, better yet, afiyet olsun!
Recipe based on those by Binnur Tomay (in Turkish), Selin Kutucular (in Turkish), Aslı Balakin (in Turkish), Claudia Roden, Aysha Dergi (in Turkish), Mehmet Yaşin (in Turkish), Chaim Cohen (in Hebrew), and Yaffa Cohen Deri (in Hebrew)
2-3 lbs (1-1.5kg) lamb stew meat, cut into chunks with the bones separated out
2 onions, diced
1 tablespoon table salt
1 teaspoon ground paprika
1 cup sweet red wine
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock (you can substitute soup powder)
9 oz (250g) roasted, peeled chestnuts
1 cup raisins, soaked in water for 10 minutes
Heat a deep pot over a high flame. Then, add the oil.
Add the meat but not the bones. Sauté the meat on high heat for ten minutes, until the meat is lightly browned on all sides. Remove the meat from the pot and set aside for a moment.
Add the bones, onions, and garlic to the pot. Sauté on high heat for five minutes, or until the onions are translucent.
Add the spices and wine, and cook for one more minute, by which time the wine should be boiling.
Add the meat back into the pot and mix with the onions. Add the stock, and water to cover the meat about 1 1/2 inches/4 centimeters.
Bring to a boil, then simmer for 1 hour, stirring regularly. Skim off the fat that accumulates at the top. (You can use the fat to make rice that goes with the stew, or dip bread into it.)
Add the chestnuts and raisins after the hour is up. Then, simmer for 15-20 more minutes.
Turn off the heat. Serve with rice and/or bread.
Thank you to Ziva Freiman for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
Son olarak, tüm Türk ve Türkçe konuşan arkadaşlarıma yardımları ve tavsiyeleri için de kalpten teşekkür ederim. Hikmetinizle mizahınız bana çok fayda sağladı. İnşallah, gelecekte bir hayli yemekler beraber yemeye devam edebiliriz. Teşekkürler ve afiyet olsun!
Pumpkin Spice, But Jewish
December 6, 2017 December 6, 2017 ~ Jonathan Katz	~ 3 Comments
(Photo Petr Kratochvil – Public Domain)
Here is a historical oddity for you: "pumpkin spice" is sometimes Jewish.
"What?" you might say. "Isn't pumpkin spice a thing for 'basic bitches'? Isn't that, like, so late-capitalism-2017?" In fact, pumpkins served sweet with spices have a long history.
The oddly metallic and rather lackluster syrup at Starbucks – and the much better versions at bakeries across North America – is simply a mass-market rendition of a long American and European tradition. This spicing is a hangover from a medieval trend of heavily spicing sweet goods with cinnamon, cloves, and other seasonings from afar. This practice was still normal in the 17th and 18th century, when Old World seasoning met the New World pumpkin, which melded in the desserts and stews of Colonial America. It certainly helps that Massachusetts and New York a major shipment center for spices, fish, and sugar – and thus exposed to all sorts of spicing. From the dessert tradition of New England – which gave us both well-spiced pumpkin pie and apple cider doughnuts – we can then go forwards, to the pumpkin spice lattes of today, and backwards, to the Jewish and indigenous influences that are melded in pumpkin spice – and reflected elsewhere. Pumpkin desserts were popular beyond American shores as well.
Pumpkin, next to some older Jewish foods – challah and etrog (Photo mine, October 2016.)
When the squash arrived from Mexico in the Mediterranean on Spanish ships in the late 16th century, it was a hit among Jews and non-Jews alike. Pumpkins and zucchini – which are both types of squash – were delicious, easy to grow in a Mediterranean climate, and lower-maintenance than other vegetables. The starchiness of the fruit stretched grains that were often too thin, while the elegance of squash fruit and flowers found its way onto the tables of the wealthy. Squash spread across the Mediterranean, including to Jewish communities, which hitherto had been using bottle gourds (dela'at in the Talmud) and muskmelons. The squash largely replaced those melons – though the related cucumber remained popular. As zucchini, squash found itself on Sephardic Shabbat tables in fried rounds, stuffed, or cooked with eggs in quajadas and frittatas. As pumpkin, squash found itself in tagines, stewed with meat, and sweets. Among these was a preparation of pumpkin that imitated the other ways of preparing quinces, apples, and nuts: in dulces, or thick and syrup-laden preserves. Dulce de calabasa, or candied pumpkin, became a venerable tradition for Rosh HaShanah and Hanukkah – and blended Old World preparation with New World crops.
Candied pumpkin, served with slivered almonds in the Sephardic style. (Photo mine, November 2017)
The methods used to candy pumpkins, quinces, and other fruits in pastes and purées probably came from Spain, where they were introduced with sugar cane by the Almoravids by the 11th century. From Spain, Sephardim took this method wherever they went – to the Netherlands, where it was new, or to the Ottoman Empire, which already employed similar methods. So too other "Spanish" but Moorish methods travelled, such as pickling in vinegar, salted fish, and the use of lemons. These Sephardic cooking methods influenced Dutch cooking (link in Dutch), which itself influenced the cooking of the Puritans and New Amsterdam. Though the cooking of the Netherlands in the 17th century was heavily influenced by the spice trade, many of the methods and flavors that became and remain common in Dutch cooking: the cloves, the cinnamon, and the sweet-savory combinations. The wealth and power of the Netherlands made it influential in Northern Europe – and especially for the Puritans who came to the Netherlands en route to America. The culinary influence they picked up there, and also gained from nearby New Netherland, influenced the sweets and cooking of Colonial America. And there, pumpkin was preponderant too. Thus Sephardim in Turkey and Pilgrims in Taunton both candied their pumpkin.
Other fruits are more common now among many Sephardic communities, but candied pumpkin remains popular in Turkey. There, you can find kabak tatlısı served with the clotted cream kaymak and a variety of nut-based pastries. Turkish and Greek Jewish communities still serve dulce de calabasa in Israel. I have also seen Israeli recipes that add tehina to the candied pumpkin. In Mexico, similar preserves are also prepared.
And, of course, the heritage is alive here in the United States, in pumpkin spice.
I made this rendition of dulce de calabasa on the request of my friend Jay, who asked for it in advance during a stay in the hospital, during which he could not eat and resultantly seemed to fantasize about food! I kept it on my mind until the pumpkins and squashes here in New York were at their best, and then made it from cobbling three recipes together. Jay was pleased with the result, and I hope you are too.
Bringing out the juices in the pumpkin
Pureed pumpkin
Pureed pumpkin with cottage cheese on a pancake (photos mine, November 2017)
Candied Pumpkin (Dulce de Calabasa/Kabak Tatlısı)
Based on the recipes by Claudia Roden, Elia Tabuenca (in Spanish) and Hamarat Abla (in Turkish)
Note: The amounts per ingredient vary by the quantity of pumpkin you cook. The number of servings also varies. For one pound/500 g of pumpkin flesh, you get about 10 servings.
Fresh pie pumpkin, kabocha, acorn squash, or other winter squash
Cut the top and bottom off the pumpkin, then cut into quarters. Peel each quarter, and remove the seeds and stringy stuff around the seeds. Discard the tops, bottoms, peels, and seeds. (You can save the seeds for roasting.)
Cut the pieces of pumpkin flesh into chunks. Then, weigh the chunks if you have a scale. If you do not have a scale, then you can make a calculation. Take the weight of the pumpkin you started with and divide by five, then multiply by four. (The peels and seeds account for about 20% of a pumpkin's weight.)
Put the pumpkin chunks into a large bowl.
Over the pumpkin, pour an amount of white sugar that is half of the weight of the pumpkin flesh. One cup of white sugar weighs 200g or 7oz. So, for 1lb/500g of pumpkin flesh, you would pour over 250g of sugar, or 1¼ cups. Mix the sugar between the pumpkin flesh.
Cover the bowl and let sit for an hour. During this time, the sugar will draw the juice out of the pumpkin flesh and will become somewhat wet.
After an hour, pour the pumpkin-sugar mixture into a pot, and add water to just cover the pumpkin. For each pound/500g of pumpkin, add: 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg, 4 dried cloves. You only need one star anise for anything less than 3kg/7lb.
Put the pot on a high flame and bring to a boil. Then, reduce to a simmer and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, uncovered, or until the pumpkin is very soft to the spoon. Stir every few minutes.
Remove the star anise from the pot. Then, use a potato masher or another implement to mash the pumpkin in the pot until the pumpkin is thoroughly puréed under the "sauce."
Simmer for another 10 minutes, or until the mixture is thicker. It should be sweet and pumpkin-y to the taste.
Remove from the heat. Serve hot, warm, or cold with soft, sweet cheese, pancakes, custard, ice cream, or rice pudding. It is traditional in many communities to mix in roasted walnuts, hazelnuts, or slivered almonds. Some also add pistachios. Keep refrigerated for up to ten days, or frozen for up to four months.
Thank you to Jay Stanton, Naomi Barnett, Sara Liss, Robbie Berg, Kate Herzlin, and Ben Wohl for conducting User Acceptance Testing on this recipe. Thank you to my fellow group members on Writing the Kitchen for spicing suggestions. Thank you to Amram Altzman and Tory Cross for encouraging me in all things pumpkin.
November 13, 2017 November 14, 2017 ~ Jonathan Katz	~ 3 Comments
Here is a dessert that seems to be common in some Jewish communities and not others: bread pudding. In the Jewish communities of England, South Africa, Argentina, and the Midwest, bread pudding is quite common as a dessert. This is not surprising, given that the dish as we know it originated in medieval England as a frugal food and later became popular in areas in the British Empire, or – like Argentina – influenced by it. It was also originally eaten as a meal itself, a trend reflected in many German puddings and our own kugels. The dish crept up from the lower classes and became sweeter, richer, and tastier among the wealthy who could afford white bread. The Ottomans, too, had their own bread-based desserts – and so you have the ekmek kadayıfı (link in Turkish) of Turkey, the umm ali of Egypt, and the budín de pan (link in Spanish) of Argentina. A bread-baked dessert makes sense: it is made from a common ingredient, is filling, and can be both very luxurious and very simple. It is also easily made without milk; thus it can be served with a meat meal in kosher households. Yet bread pudding does not seem to be quite as common in the Northeast United States or in Israel as elsewhere in the world – though I have never served it to an unwelcome audience.
I give here my "typical" bread pudding recipe, which I have made for many years – since I was in middle school! For this bread pudding, I used some Berches that I had frozen. Berches is the traditional Shabbat and holiday bread of German Jewry, and in the place of egg in challah, potato is used. The result is a delightfully fluffy and luscious bread. I will post a recipe in the future, but I strongly urge you to check out the incredible recipe in The German-Jewish Cookbook by Gabrielle and Sonya Gropman. If you do not have Berches, use another fluffy bread, such as challah or brioche.
Simple Bread Pudding
1 medium to large loaf light, white bread, shredded into small pieces (it is fine if the bread is stale) – I recommend using challah, Berches, or brioche
6 tablespoons melted butter (salted or unsalted)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
Add-ins (all optional and flexible with quantity)
1 handful dried cherries or raisins, soaked for ten minutes
1 handful chocolate chips
1 handful slivered almonds
Preheat your oven to 375F/190 C.
Place the bread in a deep 9"x9"/23cm x 23cm pan (or a similarly sized pan).
Mix in any add-ins into the bread with your hands, until evenly distributed.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the butter, milk, vanilla, cinnamon (if using), sugar, and eggs until thoroughly combined.
Pour the egg mixture over the bread. Evenly distribute such that all the bread is soaked by the mixture – you may need to press some of the bread down into the mixture with a fork.
Bake for 45 minutes, or until the liquid has set and the top is browned and crispy. A toothpick should come out clean. Remove from the oven, and serve warm or at room temperature. You can optionally serve this with a wine sauce, a custard, or ice cream.
*A note: the question of how much bread was actually consumed by the poorest is a matter of historical debate, especially given that grain shortages were common. What is certain is that medieval bread was very different – largely made from unhulled grain, and stretched with other seeds in poorer communities. Medieval peasants did not eat "well" in any sense of the word. Medieval "frugal" bread pudding would be unrecognizable to us today. I suggest reading Cuisine and Empire by Rachel Laudan or Food in Medieval Times by Melitta Weiss Adamson for more.
Lentil Soup with Leeks and Split Peas
January 2, 2017 January 2, 2017 ~ Jonathan Katz	~ 1 Comment
Happy New Year! Let us hope that 2017 is less terrible than 2016.
Lentil soup with a challah roll. Ugly but delicious! (Photo mine, December 2016)
Lentil soup is one of the oldest Jewish dishes – it is probably the "pottage" mentioned during the story of Esau and Jacob in Genesis, and we have recipes from ancient Greece that may date back as far as the second millennium BCE. It has remained a "classic" – and one that I was recently asked to make.
Red lentils. (Photo Brian Snelson via Flicker/CC, February 2007)
The question became then, what style do I use? Until recently, lentils were viewed as a food of mourning and famine in the Ashkenazi world, and were thus disdained until the early 20th century – though by 1938, when Fania Lewando's vegetarian cookbook in Yiddish was published, lentils were common enough in Lithuania to appear in several recipes. A soup recipe was among them. In the Sephardic and Mizrahi realms, however, lentils were an everyday, quotidian, and celebrated food. The lentils used in the Mediterranean – and in Claudia Roden's Egyptian recipe – were red, but brown and green lentils are more common elsewhere. And, of course, seasoning differed across the Jewish world – as well as the carbohydrate or presence of meat or dairy in the soup. There are as many Jewish lentil soups as Jewish communities.
I recently made my own lentil soup – a throwback to my grandmother's recipe, but with more vegetables and a slightly sharper flavor than her very meaty and saltier soup. This soup is probably closest to a French lentil soup, but with Palestinian seasoning. I used the green lentils common in France, along with the very Nordic split peas and leeks in the place of onions. Leeks go well with lentils: their sharpness and vegetal flavor balance out the lentil's starchy meatiness. Meanwhile, the sumac and za'atar add a pleasant bitterness to the soup – and the fenugreek adds an irresistible aroma.
Green lentils in a jar. (Photo mine, December 2016)
Sauteing the leeks and tomatoes. (Photo mine, December 2016)
Vaguely based on the recipe of Esther Katz
2 medium-sized leeks, washed, diced, and washed again
2 tablespoons table salt
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon ground smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon sumac
1 teaspoon za'atar
1 teaspoon fenugreek (dried seeds or ground)
1 tablespoon vinegar (rice wine or apple cider should do)
13oz/370g canned diced tomatoes (about one medium-sized can)
1 large turnip, peeled and diced
3 cups vegetable stock (you can use water)
2 cups dried green or brown lentils
1/3 cup dried split peas
1 cup rice (sweet brown or another short-grain rice is best)
1 tbsp rosemary, chopped if fresh
2-3 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
8-10 cups water
Grated cheese for garnish (optional)
In a large, deep soup pot, sauté the leeks in olive oil until they begin to wilt and soften, about two minutes.
Add the salt, pepper, sugar, paprika, thyme, sumac, za'atar, fenugreek, and nutmeg, and mix in thoroughly. Sauté for another minute or until the leeks are uniformly soft.
Add the vinegar and stir in thoroughly. Then, add the tomatoes and stir in thoroughly. Cook for another minute, stirring throughout.
Add the turnip and garlic and mix in thoroughly with the tomato mixture. Then, add the vegetable stock. Bring to a boil.
Add the lentils, split peas, and 8-10 cups water. Mix in thoroughly, then bring to a boil.
Simmer for 45 minutes, or until the lentils are thoroughly cooked and the water has reduced slightly. The turnips should also be soft to the fork or tooth.
Stir in the rice and the rosemary and another cup of water. Simmer for another 45 minutes, or until the rice is soft. The soup should be quite thick.
Turn off the flame and let it sit for fifteen minutes. Then, serve hot with salt and pepper to taste. You can add a bit of grated cheese. The soup tastes best on the second day.
Thank you to Jay Stanton and Julia Clemons for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
Fun With Chestnuts: Farfel Kugel with Chestnuts, Onions, and Apples
December 9, 2016 ~ Jonathan Katz	~ 1 Comment
On a lighter note than prior posts, it is chestnut season here in the temperate Northern Hemisphere. This fact is amazing in my book, because I would actually marry a chestnut tree. I love chestnuts and their sweet starchiness, which complements everything from chicken to chocolate.
Chestnuts being chopped. Delicious! (Photo mine, December 2016)
As it happens, so too did medieval Jews enjoy chestnuts – preparations with chestnuts and onions were commonplace in the cuisine of Alsatian and German Jews, and still are in some forms. Meanwhile, Jews in the Balkans and Caucasus often adopted the chestnut-based sweet and savory dishes of their neighbors, like the utterly delectable churchkhela, a Georgian sweet made with grape must and chestnuts, to tempting pastries in chestnut-loving Croatia. Even today, many Jewish cuisines incorporate chestnuts – including in a delicious chestnut and meat stew, hamim de kastanya (or etli kestane) among Sephardic communities in Turkey.
Farfel being browned in butter. (Photo mine, December 2016)
Mixing farfel and chestnut mixture. (Photo mine, December 2016)
The finished kugel before serving. Not the most aesthetically pleasing, but delicious! (Photo mine, December 2016)
In honor of the glorious chestnut I decided to make a kugel, using the Alsatian combination of chestnuts, onions, and apples – and somewhat inspired by Joan Nathan's recipe, linked above, for a dish with prunes instead of apples. I used farfel, a traditional egg noodle from Eastern Europe, for the dish. Farfel was traditionally made from egg dough by Ashkenazi Jews, and was either grated or chopped depending on the region. In English the noodle also became known as "egg barley" for its size and its eggy base. Today, farfel is somewhat rarer than in times past, but is still commonplace in many Orthodox communities. It is also delicious – and rather easy to make at home; albeit time-consuming. Though traditionally served with mushrooms, farfel also goes well with meat, soups, and sweeter sauces. During Passover, matzah farfel – or crumbled matzah – serves as a nearly perfect substitute.
A heaping, filling helping of kugel for dinner. Better than it looks! (Photo mine, December 2016)
Farfel Kugel with Chestnuts, Onions, and Apples
8 oz/225g farfel (or another small noodle)
1tbsp+2tbsp butter
7oz/200g roasted chestnuts, diced – you can use prepackaged ones
2 medium apples, diced
2 tbsp + 1 tsp salt
2 tsp+ ½ tsp black pepper
Sauté the farfel in the 1 tbsp butter for three minutes, then cook for 20 minutes in 4 ½ cups boiling water, or until the farfel are soft and have absorbed all the water.
Meanwhile, saute the chestnuts, apples, and onion in the other 2 tbsp butter for 3 minutes, or until the onions begin to soften.
Mix in the 2 tbsp salt, 2 tsp black pepper, brown sugar, cinnamon, paprika, and nutmeg with the onion-apple-chestnut mixture, and cook, stirring, for another minute.
Add the water and vinegar to the onion-apple-chestnut mixture, and cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the apples are softer and the onions and chestnuts very soft.
Preheat your oven to 400F/200C.
Mix the onion-apple-chestnut mixture with the farfel until evenly distributed. Place into an oven-proof dish, greased if necessary with butter.
In a separate bowl, mix the sour cream, eggs, salt, and black pepper until thoroughly combined. Then, mix into the farfel in the dish until evenly distributed. Make sure the mixture is level.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until the mixture is set and the top is browned. Serve as a side or as a hearty main course.
Bonus: if you want to roast your own chestnuts, I recommend the guide from BBC Good Food.
Chestnuts before roasting. (Photo mine, December 2016)
Chestnuts after roasting, in pan, before peeling. (Photo mine, December 2016)
Chickpea and Pumpkin Stew with Collard Greens
September 28, 2016 ~ Jonathan Katz	~ 2 Comments
First, a note of housekeeping: there will be a brief hiatus of blog post for the next three weeks, due to the onslaught of Jewish holidays. I will continue to link holiday-appropriate recipes on the Facebook page for Flavors of Diaspora, the Instagram page, and my personal Twitter. I wish all readers a shana tova u-metukah – a Happy and Sweet New Year.
Here is a stew, filled with the flavors of autumn, that is Jewish in character but somewhat of my own creation – and it makes for both a delicious weeknight dinner and a Rosh HaShanah centerpiece! Moreover, it is that rare combination: vegan and gluten-free. Thus I present a Chickpea and Pumpkin Stew, interspersed with the lush color of collard greens.
This recipe comes from requests from several readers. Adele M. in Oxford has requested more vegan-friendly recipes for a vegan member of the family, and Amram A. in New York requested additional pumpkin recipes. Emmett T. in Toronto also requested more gluten-free recipes – a sometimes difficult task in the gluten-heavy world of Jewish cuisines. This recipe is for all of you. Though it is my own creation, it is based on several ingredients and recipes common to Jewish and non-Jewish traditions in Turkey: collard greens (karalahana) has been grown in the Black Sea region since ancient times, and chickpeas (nohut*) have been eaten throughout the country for millennia too. Pumpkin (kabak) became a hit across the Mediterranean after it was introduced from the New World in the 16th century. Italian Jews called it zucca barucca – a Hebrew-Italian mishmash meaning "holy squash" – and Turkish Jews made fritters from the squash. Even today, a delicious pumpkin halva is popular in Turkey. This is an inauthentic combination of familiar ingredients.
Chickpea and pumpkin stew with collard greens on a bed of rice. (Photo mine via Instagram, September 2016.)
2 teaspoons za'atar
1 teaspoon ground sumac
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar (any white vinegar should do)
3 cups chopped collard greens, both leaves and stems (about 300 grams/10 ounces – you can also use another green, leafy vegetable)
2 cups cooked pumpkin, chopped (you can also used canned pumpkin, which changes the final texture)
2 cups cooked chickpeas (this is one drained 400 gram/15-oz can)
2 cups diced tomatoes (also, one 400 gram/15-oz can)
1 tablespoon ground kuzu root, arrowroot starch, or cornstarch mixed in 3 tablespoons water
3 cups water, separated into one cup and two cups
Olive oil for sautéing
Salt and pepper for final garnish
1. Heat a deep saucepan, paella pan, or wok over a high flame. Add the oil, then the onions and garlic. Saute for one minute or until the onions begin to soften.
2. Add the salt, pepper, za'atar, and mix in thoroughly with the onions and garlic. Continue sauteeing for another minute or until the onions are becoming translucent under the spices.
3. Add the chopped collard greens and mix in thoroughly. Then, add the vinegar and one cup of water.
4. Cook, stirring frequently, for two minutes, or until the collard greens have begun to wilt.
5. Add the pumpkin, chickpeas, tomatoes, and remaining two cups of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. Stir every few minutes.
6. When the collard green stems are soft to the fork, the leaves are wilted, and the liquid has reduced, it is time to add the starch. Mix the starch with water, and then mix in thoroughly with the entire stew. Simmer for 2 more minutes.
7. The sauce should now be thicker and hang longer on a spoon held sideways. Season the stew with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot with your preferred carbohydrate. For the non-vegans, the stew goes well with a dollop of fresh ricotta, fromage frais, queso fresco, or tsvorekh.
*The Turkish word nohut is the source of the Yiddish word for chickpea, nahit.
"Arab and Sephardi Pastries Are Too Sweet": Sugar, Power, Taste, and the Politics of Sweets
June 18, 2016 ~ Jonathan Katz	~ 10 Comments
Nota bene: this post takes a more academic turn than past posts.
This post starts because I wanted to make qatayef for Shavuot. (Sadly, I ran out of time before the holiday to make them.) Qatayef are pancakes, filled with sweet white cheese or walnuts, which are then fried and served with a rosewater-infused syrup. They are native to the Levant – Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine – and are frequently served both for Ramadan, which is currently occurring, and by Syrian Jews for Shavuot. Qatayef are extremely popular in Arab communities around the world, and new types of the pastry are constantly created – for example, filled with Nutella. Like their Muslim and Christian neighbors, Jewish communities from Syria served them for festivals for centuries, and continue to do so in diaspora. The cheese variety is considered a specialty of Shavuot, and other Jewish communities have since taken on to eating them. When Shavuot coincides with Ramadan, as it does this year, one could also say it is qatayef season. Indeed, who would not want a season of delicious, spongey dough filled with luscious cheese and nuts, with the sugary taste of syrup dancing on your tongue?
A more open qatayef with sweet cheese and ground pistachios – they look so yummy! (Photo Abbad Diraneyya via Wikimedia Commons)
In case you couldn't tell, I personally think qatayef are awesome.
While looking up recipes for qatayef – which are also called atayef or ataif, I recalled the prior times I had eaten them: most notably, one time in an overheated Syrian pastry shop in Queens. I had been with an Ashkenazi Israeli acquaintance, who waved his hand dismissively as he told me "all these Arab and Sephardi pastries are far too sweet." And indeed, I had heard many Ashkenazim claim that the traditional desserts of the Middle East, or North Africa, or the Balkans, and the sweets of the Jews of these regions were all a tad more sugary than tasteful. "Cloying." "Intoxicating." "Too sweet."
"Too sweet," you say?
Delicious qatayef bathing in glorious attar. (Photo Hasan Isawi via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons)
Okay, let's back up here for a moment. "Too sweet" from Ashkenazim is kind of cute in a quaint and awkward way, given that we serve things like taiglach, little pastries that are literally doused and boiled in honey. I hate taiglach with a burning and fiery passion, but among things that I like from the Ashkenazi tradition, we find macaroons exploding with sugar, hamantashen stuffed with ever-sweeter fillings, and sour cream cakes that seem to have an expanding sugar topping as the years go by. You get the idea: we can be "too sweet." That said, white Gentiles have also called our sweets "too sweet." (And the food other things – this will be in two or three posts' time.) This is also supremely awkward and tragically quaint. Let us not forget that White Middle America serves the dessert salad, which may even contain combinations of Cool Whip, Snickers bars, and Jell-O. Meanwhile, élite coastal America has gone on a juice craze in which ever-sweeter, ever-more-sugary drinks substitute for solid foods. Who has an oversized sweet tooth now?
To be fair, we shouldn't be shaming people for having a sweet tooth. But the "proper amount of sweetness" – and whose food is "too sweet" – is always a very political determination. Just as Ashkenazim, who hold power and privilege in Israel, deemed Mizrahi food to be "too spicy" or "too peppery" in the 1950s, so too have other foods of the non-elite been called too extreme in flavor. The food of "Russians" (also Ashkenazi!) was too salty, the food of "Arabs" too fatty, the food of the Yemenites "too pungent." And the sweets like qatayef, of course, were far too extremely sweet – or so it was said – for the Ashkenazi tongue. This is akin, as I noted above, to how Ashkenazi sweets (and sour foods too!) were held in low regard by American "reformers" in the early 20th century, or how the food of the black working class is considered "too fatty" or "too sweet" by the white middle class here in the United States. Sweetness is always political.
Turkish sweets are also often called "too sweet" by Westerners – but they are often so delicious, like this nutty, toasty semolina halva (ırmık helvası) I enjoyed in İzmir. (Photo mine, May 2015)
But sweetness is also a way of showing "good taste." After all, "taste" is about status at the end of the day – as the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu noted, "taste" and "knowledge" are the cornerstones of marking oneself as "elite." So too – as Bourdieu himself noted, famously in his chart of the food space, that certain tastes showed more knowledge of food, more cultural and economic capital, and thus higher status. It is the same with sweetness in the Jewish world – a certain type of sweetness is othered and ethnicized as "Mizrahi" and "lower-class," but that same "natural-sweetness" can be celebrated in an "Ashkenazi" or "elite" dessert. (Apply as you will to other ethnocultural contexts.) At the same time, it is also reversed: the love of something exotic and recherché, (which is for many folks Mizrahi and Arab sweets!) can also show higher-status standing whilst sticking with "traditional" or more well-known foods shows a lack of "cultural capital." One interesting consequence of multiculturalism is that "knowing" an "exotic" dish – itself a deeply politically loaded term – can score you status points even as its key flavorings are dismissed as "bad taste" in the cultural economy. It is a show of high cultural and economic status to "know" and even be at ease– and I borrow Shamus Khan's use of "ease" here – with the sweetness of a dessert, but at the same time be able to declare it "too sugary." So it is good taste to know qatayef, but it is also good taste to recoil at the joyous sweetness it brings.
Whose "sweet" is "too sweet?" This, I have demonstrated, is as much a question of social status as it is of physical taste and ideologies of "what is good for you." It is also perhaps biological – as Bee Wilson noted in her book First Bite, many of the base limits of our tastes are dependent on what we eat in early childhood. That might limit some of the kinds of sweetness we like, but it does not change the politics of how we express it. When qatayef and kanafeh and baklava are dismissed as too sweet in a Jewish context, it is inflected with a context that is not quite as present for other foods.
Permit me an anecdote: a few weeks after the qatayef incident, the same friend who called them "too sweet" brought me two macarons from a well-known bakery. At the time, white-collar New York was in the midst of a macaron craze – everyone, it seemed, wanted an airy almond-meringue cookie with different "elegant" flavorings. The macaron was "classy." It was recherché. It was more "elegant" and "refined" than a chocolate chip cookie. I'd had a macaron or two before – they were fine. These macarons were supposed to be "the real deal,' though. I took one bite and…the sugar rush went straight to my head in a way it did not for qatayef, or brownies, or jams. It was so sweet. I did not say anything – it would be rude to turn down such an expensive gift – but I silently cringed as I finished the two macarons. I wonder now: would the declaration "macarons are too sweet" be taken as axiomatic as it is for qatayef or any Arab or Arab-Jewish confections?
The moral? Let people have their tastes, but also recognize that tastes are always socially inflected. So when we say that a group's desserts are "too sweet," do we mean only that they are too sweet? No, because if the sweets are from a community that we have power over – Mizrahim for Ashkenazim, Arabs for Ashkenazi Jews in Israel, Jews and Arabs alike for White Gentiles in America – is it also a reflection that we have been taught, our tastes have been primed to find those things distastefully sweet. And part of unlearning that is to celebrate different tastes, but some of it is also to find where our own, in their power, can be critiqued.
A souped-up version of qatayef asafiri – qatayef with cream – in Lebanon. (Photo Deed89 via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons)
And in all this we should leave the qatayef in their proper place. Which is preferably within our easy reach.
I recommend the qatayef recipe by Hala's Kitchen, which is simple and easy to follow. For a more involved recipe, take a look at the recipe by Anissa Helou, one of my food heroes, whose post from before the Syrian Civil War is a painful look back at the now-bittersweet delicious memories of Damascus many Syrians hold.
Enjoy! (And to this blog's Muslim readers, Ramadan mubarak wa-karim!)


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text:
Angry Nigerian Fans Invade Pitch, Vandalize Abuja Stadium Facilities
There was a commotion inside the newly refurbished Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja on Tuesday following the invasion of the pitch by some angry fans of the Super Eagles of Nigeria.
reports that the angry fans thronged the pitch and vandalised stadium facilities in protest of the Super Eagles' failure to qualify for the Qatar 2022 World Cup.The Black Stars of Ghana secured a ticket to the World Cup and stopped Nigeria's dream of becoming the first African country to qualify for four consecutive World Cups.Recall that last week, Ghana hosted a 0-0 draw in the first leg of the world cup play-off.
The two teams then created tense moments at the National Stadium in Abuja as they battled for a ticket to Qatar 2022.Ghana took the lead in the 11th minute with an opener from Arsenal player, Thomas Partey.Hope was, however, restored for Nigerians after William Troost-Ekong won a penalty kick to make it 1-1 and it remained that way in the first half.
Unfortunately for the Nigerian team, the game ended 1-1 in the second half, an advantage for Ghana which scored an away goal.However, following the final whistle, a crowd of irate fans stormed the pitch, took over the bench, and smashed its glasses in anger.The angry fans also destroyed other facilities in the 60,000 capacity stadium which was renovated in August 2020, despite attempts by security operatives to forestall the breakdown of law and order
Brother Of Lady Found Dead In Hotel Says Police Told Him To Forget Justice
Bruce Willis confirms retirement from acting following Aphasia diagnosis

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text:
Q: Are characters within the same tag but before CDATA tag taken into account? I ran into an unexpected error parsing a XML-in-XML document, that uses CDATA. It seems I fixed the problem by removing the whitespace and comment before, but inside of the same tag, as the CDATA-data. Why is this happening?
Doesn't work:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ValidationRequest>
    <XMLDocument>
    <!-- The XML to check is placed here in CDATA -->
    <![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
        <Order>
        <!-- Order example -->
        <ID>123</cbc:ID>
        </Order>]]>
    </XMLDocument>
</ValidationRequest>

Works:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ValidationRequest>
    <XMLDocument><![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
        <Order>
        <!-- Order example -->
        <ID>123</cbc:ID>
        </Order>]]>
    </XMLDocument>
</ValidationRequest>

I'm deserializing the (outer) XML object using Jackson, where the XMLDocument attribute is deserialized as a String type, for later processing. I'm validating that against a schema feeding the XML String as an input stream.
This is the part of the deserialization annotation about this element:
@XmlRootElement(name = "ValidationRequest")
public class ValidationRequest {
    @XmlElement(name="XMLDocument")
    public String xmlDocument;
...

I expect both to work, but the first example gave the following error.
ParseError at [row,col]:[4,8]
Message: The processing instruction target matching "[xX][mM][lL]" is not allowed.
The second example works, but my question is why?

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text:
Board index ‹ Web Syndicated News ‹ Entertainment News
Bill Cosby Sentenced To At Least 3 Years In State Prison
News about the world of entertainment. Please submit stories for this forum here.
by MrFredPFL » Tue Sep 25, 2018 3:21 pm
Story : https://www.npr.org/2018/09/25/651065803/bill-cosby-sentenced-to-at-least-3-year
A judge has sentenced Bill Cosby to three to 10 years in Pennsylvania state prison, five months after a jury found the entertainer guilty of aggravated indecent assault. Cosby will serve at least three years behind bars, after which he would become eligible for supervised release. But there is no guarantee he would be released at that point.
Cosby chose not to make a statement. He sat alone at the defense table, as his attorneys stressed his age and infirmity throughout the two-day hearing, pleading for a sentence of house arrest.
When his punishment was read, Cosby appeared not to react. His attorney, Joseph Green, asked that his client be freed on bail while he appeals the case. Judge Steven O'Neill initially denied that request, before recessing briefly to consider the question.
Prosecutors requested the maximum sentence under the law of five to ten years in state prison, and a $25,000 fine. They also asked the court to require Cosby to cover the cost of his two trials, which added up to about $420,000.
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