![\"image](\"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/jul-10-Food.10.cookbooks_Jewish-Soul-Food.jpg\")
<\/a>Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh<\/em> (Schocken Publishers, 2014) is Janna Gur\u2019s third cookbook. It follows The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey<\/em> (Schocken, 2008), and she also edited and published Fresh Flavors from Israel<\/em> (Al Hashulchan, 2010).<\/p>\nGur\u2019s family immigrated to Israel from Riga, Latvia, in 1974. She completed a bachelor\u2019s degree in English literature and art history and a master\u2019s degree in translation and literary theory. In 1991, she and her husband founded Al Hashulchan<\/em>, a Hebrew food magazine.<\/p>\n In an interview with thekitchn.com, Gur explains that she wrote this new cookbook \u201cto give the North American audience a taste of what Jewish foods could be \u2013 how diverse and wonderful they are, and how possible it is to make them a part of our modern cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n Gur\u2019s aim was to make a focused, edited and approachable collection of 100 recipes from as many Jewish communities as possible. She wanted them to be authentic, to fit the modern kitchen and to answer the question, What is the soul of the dish \u201cthat makes us relish it and want to make it ours?\u201d<\/p>\n The eight chapters include starters, salads and noshes (23 recipes); cozy soups for chilly nights (14 recipes); meat balls, fish balls and stuffed vegetables (10 recipes); braises, pot roasts and ragus (13 recipes); meatless mains (12 recipes); savory pastries (11 recipes); Shabbat state of mind (10 recipes); and cakes, cookies and desserts (20 recipes).<\/p>\n There are 94 color illustrations, which are beautiful and mouth-watering.<\/p>\n For me, as a cook, the three most useful aspects of a cookbook are all here: every recipe has its country of origin, a brief story and numbered instructions.<\/p>\n And what wonderful countries of origin for these recipes \u2013 Morocco, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Algeria, Libya, North Africa, Georgia, Kurdistan, Russia, Persia, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Iraq, India, Yemen and America. As the book\u2019s promotional material notes, the cuisines from most of these countries may be \u201con the verge of extinction \u2026 because almost none of the Jewish communities in which they developed and thrived still exist. But they continue to be viable in Israel, where there are still cooks from the immigrant generations who know and love these dishes. Israel has become a living laboratory for this beloved and endangered Jewish food.\u201d And the hope for Jewish Soul Food is that it will help \u201cpreserve traditional cuisine for future generations\u201d by encouraging people to cook it.<\/p>\n For more about Gur, visit jannagur.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Former Wall Street lawyer Ronnie Fein decided to become a freelance food and kitchen appliance writer. This led to the Ronnie Fein School of Creative Cooking, lecturing and cooking demonstrations \u2013 and cookbooks. She has written several, but describes Hip Kosher: 175 Easy-to-Prepare Recipes for Today\u2019s Kosher Cooks<\/em> (Da Capo Press, 2008) and The Modern Kosher Kitchen: More than 125 Inspired Recipes for a New Generation of Kosher Cooks<\/em> (Fair Winds Press, 2014) as \u201cmore labors of love.\u201d<\/p>\n Fein says she wrote The Modern Kosher Kitchen<\/em> \u201cto try to inspire all home cooks who keep kosher and would like to prepare the kinds of foods that informed, sophisticated \u2013 hip \u2013 folks want to cook today.\u201d<\/p>\n And the focus is, indeed, on modern American recipes \u2013 \u201cmulticultural, innovative and interesting.\u201d Every recipe is marked meat, dairy or pareve, and every recipe has some introductory remarks, which I think make the recipe so much more personal and interesting. As well, every recipe has a \u201cDid you know?\u201d or serving suggestions and substitutions. Most recipes also have a boxed tip, piece of advice. When a recipe runs to a second page, it is always opposite, so the cook does not have to turn the page while working.<\/p>\n The 12 chapters include appetizers; soups; salads; grains, beans, pasta and vegetarian dishes; fish; meat; poultry; vegetables and side dishes; breakfast, brunch and sandwiches; budget meals; Passover dishes and desserts. Ingredients are listed in imperial measurements as well as metric.<\/p>\n Although there are 127 recipes, there are only 39 beautiful, mouth-watering color photographs \u2013 but that is certainly not a reason to pass up this book. My only criticism about the cookbook is that the instructions are in paragraphs and not numbered, which I find easier to follow.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Rounding out these reviews is not a kosher cookbook per se, however, by eliminating the cheese or using pareve chicken stock, some of the recipes could be adapted.<\/p>\n The 101 recipes in this book were included because of their taste, authenticity and nutritional value. They are low in fat, cholesterol and sodium, and packed with vitamins, minerals and healthful properties. There are also seven recipes specifically listed as alternatively gluten free.<\/p>\n The recipes are organized according to the Mediterranean diet pyramid with fruits, vegetables, grains, olive oil, beans, nuts, legumes and seeds, herbs and spices at the bottom, for every meal to be based on these foods. Above them are fish and seafood to be served twice a week. Above them are poultry, eggs, cheese and yogurt to be served in moderate portions daily or weekly. At the top of the pyramid are the least-served foods \u2013 meats and sweets.<\/p>\n Categorizing the recipes to give the reader an idea of what is included, one can find recipes for seven soups, five fish meals, four breads, six pasta, eight appetizers and sauces, five dips, three egg dishes, one sandwich, five poultry meals, eight side dishes, eight salads, eight main dishes, nine vegetables, 10 fruit dishes and six desserts.<\/p>\n Each recipe has a little story, the list of ingredients opposite the instructions (regrettably, not numbered) and a boxed Mediterranean lifestyle tip to \u201cenhance the daily living aspects of the eating plan,\u201d along with meal plans and serving suggestions.<\/p>\n At the end are a glossary with pantry foods defined, a bibliography and a selection of websites, magazine\/newspaper articles and journals for further reading.<\/p>\n The 69 color illustrations are so tempting cooks will be motivated to rush to the kitchen to start making these dishes.<\/p>\n Sybil Kaplan<\/strong> is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads weekly walks in English in Jerusalem\u2019s market.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While it might be hard to contemplate cooking on these hot summer days, there are a few recent cookbooks enticing enough to draw you into the kitchen \u2013 with savory results. Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh (Schocken Publishers, 2014) is Janna Gur\u2019s third cookbook. It follows The Book of New Israeli Food: A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[4125,4123,4127,2628,4126,4124],"class_list":["post-13576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-amy-riolo","tag-janna-gur","tag-jewish-soul-food","tag-kosher","tag-mediterranean-diet","tag-ronnie-fein"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>She writes on her website (ronniefein.com<\/a>): \u201cThey are, like this website, my efforts to bring the world of kosher cooking into 21st-century America. Just as our kosher ancestors cooked the same foods as their neighbors in Eastern Europe or the Middle East or wherever they happened to live, and adapted it to the\u00a0dietary laws, why shouldn\u2019t we, right here in America?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Amy Riolo (amyriolo.com<\/a>) is an Italian American whose ancestors came from Calabria. She is the author of many cookbooks, a chef and a TV personality, so I felt that her most recent publication \u2013 The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook<\/em> (Fair Winds Press, 2015) \u2013 was worth noting.<\/p>\n