Friday, March 09, 2007

Oddest Jewish Cookbooks?



Two come to mind: one is A Russian Jew Cooks in Peru, by the charmingly named Violeta Autumn. This book has a lot of Asheknazi recipes viewed through a South American lens. It makes no bones about being "treyfe", proudly culturally Jewish, but little else. However the author seldom strays so far from her roots that a kosher variation of a recipe can't be found.

The second is weird because of the cover and where I got it. I don't seem to have it in my library here yet, which I will try to amend. The cover is a "re-enactment" - and, boy, am I being generous with that - of a Jewish wedding with some of the fakest, glued on beards this side of a grade school play. The "bride" looks like she's worried that the "rabbi's" beard is going to drop off into the wine. And what's the deal with the three guys on the left, who all look like they picked out their beards during a black out at "Moishe's Discount Weird Beard Hut".

It was published in Warsaw in 1983 and was given to me as part of what I assume to have been a very misguided carnal bribe or declaration of some intent, in the Jewish graveyard in Warsaw. On the up-side, it has a great recipe for gefüllte fish!

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