“From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways” by Ellen F. Steinberg and Jack H. Prost. 2011, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago and Springfield. 207 pp. $32.95.
If we are what we eat, then Midwestern Jews combine traditional but not necessarily kosher dishes from various Old Countries, the heartland ingredients that modify them, and general American gustatory trends.
That’s the convincing, if unsurprising, argument of Ellen F. Steinberg and Jack H. Prost in their well-prepared and informative new book, “From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways.”
The proof of their pudding is in the research, the first scholarly analysis I’ve seen that traces how Midwestern Jews have produced, cooked, consumed and thought about food.
The book is part of the University of Illinois Press’s “Heartland Foodways” series and is accessible to a general readership.
The authors, both Chicago-area anthropologists and writers, follow a trail of recipes found jotted in personal papers and published in fundraising cookbooks and periodicals beginning in the mid-19th century. They interview bubbes known for their kitchen skills as well as proprietors of kosher and Jewish-style restaurants and bakeries.
The book sometimes rambles in its reportage of Midwestern Jewish history and in tracking recipes across time and place. But then, Jews have rambled all over the heartland, from the Ohio River to Lake Superior to the cornfields west of the Mississippi River.
Steinberg and Prost dish up a smorgasbord of specialized Midwestern Jewish recipes. In St. Louis, they discover Tzizel Rye Breads coated in cornmeal and Tzizel Bagels boiled on the premises of Pratzel’s Bakery. Not even the owners know the meaning of “tzizel,” though one guesses it refers to the Yiddish word for sweet.
The authors mention baklava loaded with cranberries, and pumpernickel bread sprinkled with almonds and Iowa sunflower seeds.
At Kaufman’s Bakery in suburban Chicago, they find pumpernickels loaded with raisins (light or dark —your choice). They describe catsup made from Michigan wild sour grapes, and borekas filled with cherries. They reel in a recipe for gefilte fish made with Minnesota northern pike.
Wisconsin Jewry’s kitchen contributions are mentioned throughout, beginning in 1845 with John and Fredricka Levy, German Jews who were among the first settlers of La Crosse.
In memoirs written in German, Fredricka recalled her garden’s yield of tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. She wrote of picking wild strawberries, drying plums, and gathering acorns. She recalled a feast of wild birds, and cooking potatoes and pork for visiting Native Americans.
Keeping kosher was nigh impossible for the early Jewish settlers. In fact, bacon was a staple during the slow, difficult trips through the wilderness.
A half century later in Milwaukee, Lizzie Black Kander led women of the established German Jewish community in operating the Settlement House. They taught Russian Jewish immigrants, particularly the girls, how to sew, cook and generally become Americanized. These efforts led to publication in 1901 of the “Settlement Cook Book: The Way to a Man’s Heart.”
Steinberg and Prost write that “The Settlement Cook Book,” still in print, “changed forever the way multiple generations of Jewish immigrants cooked by demonstrating how American ingredients could be incorporated into traditional Jewish dishes, and by showing how American ways of cooking could be applied to Old World foods to make them ‘more palatable’ and healthier.”
The authors write enthusiastically about Jake’s Deli, Milwaukee’s “time warp” of a Jewish-style restaurant, as they put it. The authors love the dark wooden booths, the Formica counter tops, the eclectic patrons, and especially the corned beef and pastrami.
In Madison, the authors gush over Ella’s Deli and Ice Cream Parlor, with its thick menu of desserts and Jewish delicacies and extensive collection of circus toys. They also visit the National Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, where proprietor Barry Levenson gathers mustards from around the world.
Steinberg and Prost seem to be well-versed in the history of both American and American Jewish foodways, and take a stab at identifying culinary trends. Heartland Jews are interested in authentic and healthy foods, the authors contend, and are eager to alter traditional recipes to include less fat and more healthy ingredients.
They base these conclusions on anecdotal evidence. In fact, they rely too much on individual recipes and stories throughout this interesting book.
They could have bolstered their case by turning to readily available sources to, say, estimate the number of Jews who kept kosher at various times, or they could have compiled a chart of kosher and Jewish-style restaurants and grocery stores over the years.
It would have been helpful to know that more than a half million Jews live in the eight-state area they studied.
None of these flaws detracts from the book’s mouth-watering regional recipes and warm accounts of a mom or grandma in command of the kitchen. “From the Jewish Heartland” serves up nutritious, Jewish comfort food for thought.
Andrew Muchin is a freelance writer who edited and co-published Jewish Heartland magazine.
Loading ...