With the high holidays beginning next week, a book caught my attention. Its title at first startled me—Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival, “remarkable stories and authentic recipes of Holocaust survivors.” Was this a book of how men, women, children survived the Holocaust? In recipes?! Possible, but macabre.
As I flipped through the book, written by June Hersh, I realized this was a beautifully told history using food to tell of how survivors fled Europe. Evelyn Pike Rubin recalls fleeing Nazi Germany to Shanghai, China. She now lives in Jericho, New York, and offers a recipe for a sweet summer peach cake. Well-known cookbook authors also appear throughout, such as Arthur Schwartz, who offers a recipe for dill pickles, as prepared by his grandfather.
This is just one of several Jewish cookbooks pubbing in September. From Kyle books comes Kosher Revolution: New Techniques and Great Recipes for Unlimited Kosher Cooking by Geila Hocherman and Arthur Boehm. Serving 10 to 12 people is a chicken tajine made with prunes, apricots and cinnamon.
Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg take readers Inside the Jewish Bakery”: Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking (Camino Books). And from University of Illinois press is From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways by Ellen F. Steinberg and Jack. H. Prost.
The Recipes Remembered author, June Hersh, brings us the intriguingly titled The Kosher Carnivore: The Ultimate Meat and Poultry Cookbook”\ (St. Martin’s). Whether your fancy is southern-fried sweetbreads, pesto-crusted roasted lamb shoulder, or a beef braciole in a Sunday sauce, Hersh has some pretty fine Kosher offerings.
