Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook

August 16, 2004
Twenty-five years ago, Nathan published The Jewish Holiday Kitchen, a landmark work that juxtaposed recipes with oral histories. Although she acknowledges that the past quarter century has brought some changes to Jewish cooking--e.g., Kosher caterers are lightening their foods;"young American superstar chefs" have come onto the scene; California wineries now produce award-winning kosher wines--Nathan still relies on traditional recipes, such as My Mother's Brisket, Cabbage Strudel, Romanian Beet Borscht, Vegetable Kugels and Babka in her new volume. Revising and updating recipes from Holiday Kitchen and another previous work, The Jewish Holiday Baker, Nathan shares instructions for making nearly 400 dishes, dividing them by holiday: the Sabbath, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, Shavuot and the minor holidays. Lengthy introductions accompany each recipe, and Nathan's ability to balance interesting tidbits with useful instructions make this a supremely worthwhile resource. She covers every cuisine of the Jewish tradition, from Central and Eastern European to Middle Eastern to American.

September 15, 2004
Not merely a revision of The Jewish Holiday Kitchen, first published 25 years ago, Nathan's big new book also includes recipes and material from The Jewish Holiday Baker and her numerous articles for the New York Times. The hundreds of recipes, representing both the Ashkenazic and the Sephardic traditions, come from Jewish communities all over the world: Moroccan Challah, Greek Leek Patties, Mexican Banana Cake, and Haroset from Surinam. There are regional and cultural variations of many recipes--for example, in addition to the one from Surinam, there are also Egyptian, Venetian, Persian, and Yemenite harosets. Recipes are organized by holiday, from Rosh Hashanah to Shavuoth, with separate chapters on the Sabbath and "The Life Cycle," a selection of traditional dishes for events such as bar mitzvahs and weddings. Detailed, thoroughly researched head notes provide historical and religious context, and numerous boxes cover a wide variety of topics. Highly recommended.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2004
It has been 25 years since Nathan's " Jewish Holiday Kitchen " was first published. This volume gathers recipes from that book and from the food writer's " Jewish" " Holiday Baker" (1997) for a celebratory revision. And what a collection it is: 400 recipes accompanied by personal commentary and culinary history passed down through generations of Jewish cooks. That's part of the charm here as readers learn that "eating fish symbolizes the hope of redemption for Israel" and other snippets of fact and folklore. Keyed mostly to eight major Jewish holidays-- from Shabbat to Shavuot--the recipes represent both eastern European and Sephardic traditions, and are nicely adapted for modern cooks: processors speed preparation, and ingredients such as packaged onion soup are occasionally used. There's even a recipe for "low-cholesterol challah." It's a tasty assortment for Jewish cooks but also for anyone interested in ethnic cuisine. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)