The Jewish New Year 5785 starts tonight at sundown. The name “Rosh Hashanah” means “head of the year.” The similarity between the Jewish New Year and the American one is that most Americans use the new year as a time to plan a better life, making resolutions. Likewise, the Jewish New Year is a time to begin introspection, looking back at the mistakes of the past year, and to plan changes to make in the new year. The Jewish calendar is lunar rather than solar, which is used by most of the western world. Similar to Easter, holiday dates shift from year to year.
To celebrate the start of a new year, many foods you’ll find on Jewish tables at this time are extra sweet — literally and symbolically — to represent sweetness and a bountiful blessing to start the year.
The foods we have in our home during the holiday are from Ashkenazi traditions. Ashkenazi Jews originally hailed from Eastern and Central Europe. Sephardic Jews from Spain, Morocco and Turkey prepare a table in a way that’s totally different. Today’s featured recipe is an example. As Tevye reminds us in “Fiddler on the Roof,” it is all about tradition.
The traditional meal will often start with apples and honey. Jews have been dipping apples in honey for thousands of years to ensure a sweet, fruitful year ahead. Other sweets often served are pomegranate and honey cake. Pomegranates are said to have 613 seeds, each representing a commandant from the Hebrew Torah, or first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. Many families have their own recipes for honey cake, but just like everything else on this list, they are sweet and intended to celebrate the sweetness of the new year.
The traditional challah (bread) served for the holiday, unlike the rest of the year when it is braided, is round or spiraled to represent one’s hopes for continuity in the year ahead. Often it will have raisins or be dipped in honey, again to express wishes for a sweet new year.
Fish is often an entrée, and for many, the head of the fish will be included on a platter to represent the head, or the beginning, of the year. My family prefers not seeing the head and just enjoying the nice pink flesh of salmon.
An interesting traditional dish is tzimmes. This casserole-style dish is made of root vegetables, fruit stew and a sweet sauce. The name tzimmes comes from the Yiddish expression for “making a fuss,” referring to the prep work required for the dish. It’s been made many ways over time and from family to family; it sometimes includes meat as well. For Rosh Hashanah, the carrots are cut into coins to symbolize prosperity and good fortune in the coming year. Tzimmes is also served at Passover or on Shabbat, but it really doesn’t have to be a holiday to enjoy this beloved dish.
Many Jewish homes will serve beef brisket. If you are looking at a diagram of a steer, the brisket is in the lower chest area of the animal. The brisket itself is the muscle that supports about 60% of the animal’s body weight. Your average full-grown steer can weigh upwards of 1,200 pounds. So, as you can imagine, the brisket section of the animal gets its fair share of strain and work. The brisket cut is one of the toughest cuts of beef that comes out of a steer. Each animal carcass produces two whole briskets — one from each side of the breast. A whole brisket typically weighs between 10 and 16 pounds, so for the whole steer, that totals 20 to 32 pounds.
Brisket became a regular feature of holiday (particularly Passover and Rosh Hashanah) tables among European Jews. It’s tough, stubborn texture requires roasting at a low temperature for an extended period. This protracted preparation timeline proved perfect for Jewish cooks, who could begin roasting the brisket just prior to pausing labor for 24 hours in observation of the Sabbath — or 48 hours for the holidays — and return to retrieve it in time for lunch the following day.
Some American Jews, particularly those south of the Mason-Dixon line, decided to try imitating their neighbors and forgo roasting brisket altogether in favor of smoking. Thus, the South saw the rise of smoked brisket alongside the development of barbeque brisket.
The following recipe comes from Jewish Federation of Springfield Director Nancy Sage. Thank you, Nancy.
Moroccan sweet potatoes and vegetables
Serves 8-10
Ingredients
4 large onions, sliced thickly
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 15-oz. can chickpeas, drained
1 pound acorn squash, pumpkin or carrots peeled, cubed and microwaved for 5 minutes; if frozen, thaw and drain excess water
1-2 sweet potatoes, peeled, cubed and microwaved for 5 minutes
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9x13-inch casserole dish.
Sauté onions in vegetable oil until golden. Remove onions from the oil.
Line bottom of casserole dish with chickpeas and onions. Add vegetables and raisin layer to the casserole. Sprinkle the top with cinnamon and sugar; drizzle a little oil.
Cover and bake for 30 minutes; uncover, and bake 20 more minutes until well browned.
The traditional greeting for the new year is “shana tova,” — a good, sweet year. On behalf of Carol and myself, we wish everyone shana tova!
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Lincoln Land Community College offers credit programs in Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management and Baking/Pastry, and non-credit cooking and food classes through ͷapp Community Education.
Cooking or food questions? Email epicuriosity101@llcc.edu.