Monday, April 25, 2016

Yiddish Flavor

In ‘Rhapsody in Schmaltz,’ Michael Wex delves into Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine and the stories behind classic dishes—from kugel to cholent to brain latkes. (Yes, brain latkes.)


By Leah Koenig for Tablet Magazine


Michael Wex is not a chef. He’s not a lifelong challah baker, an avid cookbook collector, or even, by his own admission, much of a home cook. But his new book, Rhapsody in Schmaltz: Yiddish Food and Why We Can’t Stop Eating It, might just be the most important Jewish food book published this year.

As a novelist and author of Born to Kvetch, a New York Times best-selling book on Yiddish language and culture, Wex has established himself as one of the field’s few public intellectuals—the Malcolm Gladwell of the Yiddish world, minus the controversy. In Rhapsody in Schmaltz, he turns his attention to food, specifically the nostalgic brand of cooking served forth from the hardscrabble kitchens of Eastern Europe.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

No comments:

Post a Comment