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Tag: Mediterranean diet

Ancient foods still popular

Ancient foods still popular

Dates being harvested from Hannah, a tree germinated from ancient seeds in Israel. (screenshot from arava.org)

The Mediterranean Diet is not a recent lifestyle development, but rather a form of eating going back to ancient times.

Based on the foods consumed by people living near the Mediterranean Sea, this diet contains lots of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits and vegetables. It includes fish and dairy products, such as cheese and yogurts. It allows for wine drinking and a bit of meat.

From the specialized field of Israeli agro-archeology, we can get an idea of what people once grew and ate – and a number of these foods are mentioned in the Torah.

In some instances, the sages understood why certain foods were healthy, as seen in this quote from Tractate Ketubot of the Babylonian Talmud: “Dates are wholesome in the morning and in the evening. They are bad in the afternoon, but, at noon, there is nothing to match them. Besides, they do away with three things: evil thoughts, sickness of the bowels and hemorrhoids.”

In September 2020, the Arava Institute harvested 111 very special dates – the first fruit of Hannah, a tree sprouted from a 2,000-year-old seed and pollinated by another ancient Judean date tree. Dr. Elaine Solowey, director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture of the Arava Institute, and Dr. Sarah Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Centre of Hadassah Hospital, harvested these ancient dates in the culmination of a decades-long experiment to raise the biblical-era Phoenix dactylifera (date palm) from the dead. The date seeds were originally discovered in the 1960s, when Yigal Yadin excavated Masada.

And, in January 2021, Israeli archeologists published the discovery of thousands of olive pits off the southern coast of Haifa. These pits were embedded in stone and clay neolithic structures in a now-submerged area, but one that was probably once part of the northern coast. They date back to about 4600 BCE.

Tel Aviv University archeologist Dafna Langot points out that these pits were not from olives used for oil because, in the production of olive oil, the pits get crushed and, in this find, the pits were mostly still intact. The site’s proximity to the Mediterranean Sea may indicate that the seawater served to de-bitter, pickle and salt the olives. (To read the article “Early production of table olives at a mid-7th millennium BP submerged site off the Carmel coast [Israel],” visit nature.com/articles/s41598-020-80772-6. BP stands for “before the present.”)

There is no biblical reference to olive eating itself. But, at the ceremony in which Moshe’s brother Aaron and Aaron’s sons become the priests over the ancient Hebrews, they ate matzah with oil olive (Exodus 29:2). Indeed, olive oil seems to have the edge over olives as seen in R. Yohanan’s warning: olives cause one to forget 70 years of study, olive oil restores 70 years of study (Babylonian Talmud, Horayot 13b). Yet, in Numbers Rabbah 8:10, proselytes are praised using a comparison to olives: “just as there are olives for eating, preserving and for oil … so from proselytes came Bible scholars, Mishnah scholars, men of commerce and men of wisdom, men of understanding.”

Around the ancient Hula Lake – referred to by researchers as Gesher Benot Yaakov or GBY – Israeli archeologists have discovered different types of nuts, dating back to the Lower Paleolithic period (1.5 million to 200,000 years ago). Two types of pistachio nuts (Pistacia atlantica and Pistacia vera) are said to have been gathered there. (See “Nuts, nut cracking, and pitted stones at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel,” at pnas.org/content/99/4/2455.)

Pistachios are one of only two nuts mentioned in the Bible. Pistachios may have grown in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 43:11). Legend has it that the Queen of Sheba declared pistachios were to be enjoyed only by royalty, even decreeing that it was illegal for commoners to grow pistachio trees. The nuts were considered an aphrodisiac.

In the Middle East, both Muslims and Jews prepare pistachio-filled baklava for holiday celebrations.

photo - In biblical times, barley was used as fodder for donkeys and horses so, if a person ate barley, it was a sign they were poor
In biblical times, barley was used as fodder for donkeys and horses so, if a person ate barley, it was a sign they were poor. (photo by Alicja / Pixabay)

On the Gezer Calendar, which dates back to King Solomon’s era, the springtime months of Iyar and Sivan are noted as the time for harvesting barley, the first grain to ripen in Israel. On the status scale, however, barley was held in low regard. It was used as fodder for donkeys and horses (I Kings 5:8). Thus, in biblical times, if you ate barley, it was a sign you were poor. At recent Israeli archeology digs, onsite workers collected barley seeds from the epipaleolithic period, some 20,000 to 10,000 years BP.

In addition, Israeli archeologists have identified 1,000-year-old eggplant seeds. They found the seeds in cisterns located in an ancient market complex that was discovered in Jerusalem’s Givati Parking Lot dig, more or less across from the Old City’s Dung Gate. The cisterns apparently had been left behind in either cesspits or garbage pits and the eggplant seeds had neither rotted nor disintegrated. Researchers surmise that the market stall owners used garbage pits to hold their unused stock or to discard damaged produce. Eggplant seeds found in cesspits were seeds consumed and naturally eliminated.

Eggplants are well-traveled. According to the late Gil Marks, in his cookbook Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, eggplants originated in India some 4,000 years ago. By the fourth century CE, eggplants arrived in Persia. From, there they were “picked up” by Arabs, who probably brought them to Spain in the ninth century. Claudia Roden writes in her book The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York that Jews came to be associated with eggplant when they fled the Almohades and Almoravides and when the Inquisition banished them from southern Italy.

Seeing that pomegranates are part of the Rosh Hashanah table, I’ll close with some information about the ancient fruit, one of the seven species mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8. The Roman Pliny the Elder, who died in the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius, also had something to say about this juicy fall fruit – he wrote that the wild pomegranate seed, taken in drink, is curative of dropsy (edema).

Pomegranate seed oil contains high concentrations of Omega 5, which is believed to be one of the most powerful antioxidants in nature. Prof. Ruth Gabizon and Prof. Shlomo Magdassi from Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital are hopeful that their pomegranate seed oil research will lead to a way of slowing down or lessening the effects of degenerative brain diseases.

A 2020 report by other researchers, which was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqz241), contends that pomegranate juice helps maintain visual memory skills in middle-aged and older adults. The authors of the study state that it could have a potential impact on visual memory issues commonly associated with aging.

The old Mediterranean diet continues to provide new promise.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Format ImagePosted on August 27, 2021August 25, 2021Author Deborah Rubin FieldsCategories LifeTags food, health, history, Judaism, Mediterranean diet, science

Cookbooks for the summer

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 – with savory results.

image - Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh by Janna Gur book coverJewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh (Schocken Publishers, 2014) is Janna Gur’s third cookbook. It follows The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey (Schocken, 2008), and she also edited and published Fresh Flavors from Israel (Al Hashulchan, 2010).

Gur’s family immigrated to Israel from Riga, Latvia, in 1974. She completed a bachelor’s degree in English literature and art history and a master’s degree in translation and literary theory. In 1991, she and her husband founded Al Hashulchan, a Hebrew food magazine.

In an interview with thekitchn.com, Gur explains that she wrote this new cookbook “to give the North American audience a taste of what Jewish foods could be – how diverse and wonderful they are, and how possible it is to make them a part of our modern cooking.”

Gur’s 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 “that makes us relish it and want to make it ours?”

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).

There are 94 color illustrations, which are beautiful and mouth-watering.

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.

And what wonderful countries of origin for these recipes – Morocco, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Algeria, Libya, North Africa, Georgia, Kurdistan, Russia, Persia, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Iraq, India, Yemen and America. As the book’s promotional material notes, the cuisines from most of these countries may be “on the verge of extinction … 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.” And the hope for Jewish Soul Food is that it will help “preserve traditional cuisine for future generations” by encouraging people to cook it.

For more about Gur, visit jannagur.com.

***

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 – and cookbooks. She has written several, but describes Hip Kosher: 175 Easy-to-Prepare Recipes for Today’s Kosher Cooks (Da Capo Press, 2008) and The Modern Kosher Kitchen: More than 125 Inspired Recipes for a New Generation of Kosher Cooks (Fair Winds Press, 2014) as “more labors of love.”

image - The Modern Kosher Kitchenby Ronnie Fein book coverShe writes on her website (ronniefein.com): “They 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 dietary laws, why shouldn’t we, right here in America?”

Fein says she wrote The Modern Kosher Kitchen “to try to inspire all home cooks who keep kosher and would like to prepare the kinds of foods that informed, sophisticated – hip – folks want to cook today.”

And the focus is, indeed, on modern American recipes – “multicultural, innovative and interesting.” 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 “Did you know?” 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.

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.

Although there are 127 recipes, there are only 39 beautiful, mouth-watering color photographs – 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.

***

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.

image - The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook by Amy Riolo book coverAmy Riolo (amyriolo.com) 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 – The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (Fair Winds Press, 2015) – was worth noting.

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.

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 – meats and sweets.

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.

Each recipe has a little story, the list of ingredients opposite the instructions (regrettably, not numbered) and a boxed Mediterranean lifestyle tip to “enhance the daily living aspects of the eating plan,” along with meal plans and serving suggestions.

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.

The 69 color illustrations are so tempting cooks will be motivated to rush to the kitchen to start making these dishes.

Sybil Kaplan 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’s market.

 

Posted on July 10, 2015July 8, 2015Author Sybil KaplanCategories BooksTags Amy Riolo, Janna Gur, Jewish Soul Food, kosher, Mediterranean diet, Ronnie Fein
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