This Hanukkah lamp, manufactured in Italy in the 19th century, depicts Judith holding a sword in one particular hand and the severed head of Holofernes in the other.
At Hanukkah, a lot of Jewish families celebrate with foods such as latkes and donuts that are fried in oil. The tradition honors the story of the miracle that occurred when a one particular -day provide of oil burned for eight days inside a temple under siege by the enemy.
Some Jews also consume dishes like kugel, cheesecake or rugelah that all share a single ingredient cheese. But how did cheese make it onto the vacation menu?
It begins (as quite a few of these tales do) with a female. This woman was Judith.
Judith was mentioned to be a gorgeous widow who lived in the town of Bethulia in Israel through the sixth century B.C. An army set siege on the town, and Judith went into the enemy camp to meet with their leader, Holofernes, a standard for Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyrians. Holofernes was so charmed by the widow that he drank as well substantially wine and passed out, right after which Judith took his sword and lower off his head. The severed head inspired the Israelites to attack, and the Assyrians fled.
The story may sound acquainted to Catholics, as the book of Judith is included in the Outdated Testament of their Bible. But Judith didn't make it into the Tanakh, a collection of Jewish scripture that incorporates the Torah. By the Middle Ages, even though, Jews have been telling a Judith tale. "It could be Jews were taking back their Jewish heroine," says Susan Weingarten, a scholar of Talmudic food in Israel and a contributor to the book The Sword of Judith.
Enlarge image Lemon and dried blueberry blintzes, filled with creamy ricotta cheese, provide a tasty way to serve dairy and honor Judith for Hanukkah.
Lemon and dried blueberry blintzes, filled with creamy ricotta cheese, provide a tasty way to serve dairy and honor Judith for Hanukkah.
By that time, the story of Judith had become related with Hanukkah, despite her story happening centuries before that holiday miracle of the oil was considered to consider place. In Jewish versions of the story, passed down orally via the centuries, Judith typically became the aunt or daughter of Judah Maccabee, the hero of the Hanukkah oil story. Her addition may possibly have served as a parallel to that of Esther, who saves the Jewish men and women from a death order in Persia and is the heroine of the spring holiday Purim, says Weingarten.
The Jewish tales of Judith also made their heroine clever. In the unique story, Judith brought what Weingarten calls a "doggie bag" of foods with her to Holofernes' camp goods like dry fig cake and bread so that she would not have to eat the foods of the enemy king. But in some of the Jewish stories, she shared her meals with the common. And there was a salty item assured to make her enemy thirsty adequate to get drunk that was cheese. A single version of the story specifies that the cheese was cooked into a pancake.
"By the 14th century, there's very a powerful tradition that folks eat cheese on Hanukkah and it is connected with Judith giving cheese to the enemy to make him drunk," Weingarten says.
A commentary from that time, by Rabbi Moses Isserles, on the Shulchran Arach, the Jewish Code of Law, even recommends consuming cheese on the holiday in honor of Judith.
Through the Middle Ages, that cheese would have very likely come from a goat or a sheep, as cow's milk cheese was unusual, Weingarten says. And it was usually cooked into a pancake which brings us to one more possibly surprising revelation: The original latkes were cheese latkes, not potato which mixed the tradition of eating cheese with the tradition of eating meals fried in oil.
The potato, following all, didn't come to Europe till properly right after Columbus came to America. Potato latkes have been a 19th-century invention, says Gil Marks, author of the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food . The cheese tradition might have died out in component due to the fact in northern and eastern Europe, exactly where frying was often performed in chicken unwanted fat (that is, schmaltz), placing cheese into a pancake was not allowed by Jewish dietary laws. They ban the mixing of dairy and meat.
So why are not numerous contemporary Jews telling tales of Judith and munching on cheese latkes? Even Weingarten didn't eat cheese for the holiday until she had studied the Judith story. (She has given that made her very own recipe for cheese latkes, which she's shared with us beneath.)
Marks says in the U.S., wherever December is dominated by Christmas, Hanukkah modified from getting a small holiday to a a lot greater celebration marked by present providing. And along the way to this transformation, the story of Judith, and the tradition of cheese eating, was largely forgotten.
"A amount of Jews lost trust with their European roots," Marks says.
In Rome, however, Jews however make pancakes with ricotta for Hanukkah, Marks says. And quite a few Jews in Israel, especially from Orthodox households, continue to carry out the Judith tradition.
Even in the U.S., Marks notes, several of the foods that Jews consume for the vacation have cheese or milk. Cream-filled donuts honor both the dairy and fried traditions, for instance. And " a lot of residences will have a noodle kugel or blintzes or cheesecake for dinner," Marks says. The cause why has "just been forgotten."
Susan Weingarten's Levivot (Latkes) With Cheese
three / 4 cup matzo meal
one cup milk
2 eggs
one hundred -150 grams tricky cheese Edam or Mozzarella or even an unripe Camembert
salt
oil for frying
Cut the cheese into one centimeter cubes. Warmth the oil in a hefty frying pan till it is just starting to smoke.
Mix the matzo meal, milk and eggs until eventually it seems like thick but liquid cream. If the batter is also thick, include additional milk.
Include the cubes of cheese and mix properly they have to be coated in the batter.
Include the batter to the hot oil with a substantial spoon or ladle. Check that the levivot are not sticking to the frying pan and turn them in excess of when you see a brown line approximately them.
Consider them out with a slotted spoon to drain off as considerably oil as feasible.
Eat hot.
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