Hummus & Challah: How Poland Is Rediscovering and Reinventing Jewish Food

Written by:
Natalia Netrak-Ruda
Published:
Spring 2021
Part of issue number:
83

Food is an integral part of the Jewish story. As Jews migrated to different parts of the dias­pora they brought their culinary traditions with them while also adapting to, and adopting from, new food landscapes. This was certainly true in Poland, whose culinary practices helped form the backbone of traditional Ashkenazi cuisine. Despite the dev­astating impact of the Holocaust, that history is far from over. Polish chefs, scholars, and casual foodies continue to draw inspiration from the country’s Jewish past, as well as from contemporary Israeli reci­pes and ingredients. In this dispatch from Warsaw, translator and food writer Natalia Mętrak-Ruda fills us in on some of the most recent devel­opments on the Polish-Jewish food scene, including a new emphasis on vegetarianism and the most important meal of the day: breakfast.

In 2018, Warsaw’s POLIN Museum organized its first Jewish Food Festival. At first it wasn’t ob- vious that the festival, named TISH (Yiddish for table), would be a success. To some people, it seemed that food was too trivial a subject for such an event. But the festival’s founder, Mag- dalena Maślak, was convinced that it was essential, and should therefore become a key part of POLIN’s educational program.

“After we evaluated the first iteration of the event, we discovered that 40 percent of the festival’s guests had never taken part in any other activities organized by the Museum,” Maślak said. “Food was what drew them to us.”

TISH, which has now taken place three times, features lectures, walks, publications, and podcasts, as well as culinary workshops and meals by prominent chefs and cookbook authors. One of Maślak’s most innovative ideas was to ask Warsaw’s “milk bars”—affordable cafeterias sub- sidized by the state—to change the language of their menus from Polish to Yiddish during the festival. And so, placki ziemniaczane (potato pan- cakes) became latkes, naleśniki (crêpes) became blintzes, and gołąbki (cabbage rolls) turned into holishkes. With a simple gesture, the common roots of both cuisines became clear.

“The idea came to me when I took our American guests—Liz Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz, from the New York culinary collective Gefilte- ria—to a milk bar, and they were stunned by how much the food reminded them of what they ate as children,” Maślak said.

In 2018, the main event at TISH was a Shabbos dinner prepared by five celebrated cooks. Another favorite meal was brunch, which offered a chance to find common ground over universally beloved breads, like challah and bagels. Among Warsaw foodies, however, there has long been talk of a different meal, “Jewish breakfast.”

Much of the credit for this focus goes to food writer and culinary educator Maryla Musidlows- ka. She’s prepared many Shabbos dinners in her time, but now dedicates most of her attention to morning meals. Together with chef Jakub Chojec-ki, she regularly organizes Boker Tov (Good Morn ing)—kosher, vegetarian breakfasts at Warsaw’s Jewish Community Center. Here Polish cottage cheese meets hummus, shakshuka and eggplant are served alongside potato salad and roasted beets, and challah pudding stands next to heavy Polish yeast cakes. At breakfast Poland meets Is- rael, and people meet to share coffee, food, and laughter. Or at least they did, before the pandemic. This year, the TISH festival’s Polish-Jewish delicacies took the form of picnic baskets, to be enjoyed at home.

As well as teaching at the JCC, Musidlowska also shares her knowledge of Jewish food at open- air fairs and festivals all over Poland, and she tries to find Jewish connections wherever she goes. “When I organized a workshop in the town of Szczebrzeszyn, I learned about Jankiel Grojser— the only Jew who lived there after the war,” she said. “He had a lemonade stand, which became my culinary starting point.” When asked about the food she likes to cook most, Musidlowska pointed to “food that helps cope with poverty: pierogi, latkes, racuchy. If you know how to make pierogi, you’ll never go hungry.”

Musidlowska’s Boker Tov breakfasts aren’t just a morning meeting place for Jewish and Polish food, but also an opportunity to showcase the vegetarian potential of both. Musidlowska her- self is a vegetarian cook, and the popularity of Israeli cuisine in Poland is connected to the plant- based trend. Yotam Ottolenghi’s global fame plays a role here, as does the fact that falafel and hummus are favorite foods of the growing number of Polish vegetarians and vegans. Plus, it’s easier to keep food kosher if meat is not used at all.

The breakfasts also point to another trend. Nowadays, it’s Middle Eastern dishes that Poles think of as Jewish food—whereas in the past, the Ashkenazi recipes of Central and Eastern Europe were thought of as traditional Jewish food. While today falafel is all the rage, it would be hard to find gefilte fish or cholent in any restaurant in Warsaw. Nowadays, traditional Jewish-Polish dishes based on offal, like liver or stuffed poultry necks, are no more than a curiosity, not because of their Jewish origin, but because of changes in Polish eating habits. Still, there is one long-ago Ashkenazi cook whose creations still seem utterly modern and are now being deservedly rediscovered: Fania Lewando.

Lewando was a pioneer of plant-based, “farm- to-table” cuisine, who opened her own restaurant in prewar Vilna. Her goal was to revolutionize Ashkenazi food by popularizing a vegetarian diet, and like many of our grandmothers, she was a proponent of a “zero-waste” philosophy. Her col- lection of vegetarian recipes was lost during the war—Lewando herself was killed—but was rediscovered at a London fair in the 1990s. It has since been translated into English as The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook, as well as into Lithuanian and Polish. The Polish edition was edited by the Mecyje Collective—five women who fell in love with Lewando’s food and met regularly for two years to cook her recipes.

In Lewando’s cookbook, Polish readers can find familiar dishes like sauerkraut and borscht, along with more exotic delicacies, like almond soup and fig kugel. Many of Lewando’s recipes seem incredibly modern, like schnitzel made from cau- liflower, or mock fish from vegetables and eggs.

In a note next to a recipe for prune and potato tsimmes, Mecyje writes, “Reading this recipe, we couldn’t shake off a sense of déjà vu. To see how close people are to each other, check out Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem—specifically his recipe for potatoes baked with prunes and caramel.” While the Polish editors adapted Lewando’s recipes for the modern kitchen, they also emphasize the author’s distinctive contribution to Jewish cuisine. Its recipes, they write, are laden with “symbolism, connecting particular dishes to particular celebrations,” and are attentive to the necessity of “preparing food according to the laws of Kashrut.”

This connection between a prewar Jewish cook, a Polish culinary collective, and a modern Israeli culinary superstar is a beautiful reminder of the various paths a Jewish recipe can take. With so many cooks, educators, and authors working to preserve Jewish culinary heritage in modern-day Poland, there is still plenty more to learn, discover, and taste.

Natalia Metral-Ruda is a Polish literary translator and food writer. She has a PhD in cultural studies and writes about food history.