Bewitched by gefilte fish, bagels and kneidlach

Or how I fell in love with Jewish food when I fell in love with a Jewish boy

I’ve written before about how drab I feel my own food heritage is. I am ever wary of being some kind of white girl wearing eau de colonialism, fetishising other cultures. But I think everyone, no matter their background, is curious about food that is different to whatever they grew up eating. And I have always become overexcited by food from cultures different to my own. I hope it comes from a positive, enthusiastic place and I am always open to feedback if I am going wrong with it somehow.

When I first moved to Manchester from a tiny village in Lancs to join a band, I spent most weekends at a ramshackle rehearsal space in Radcliffe, North Manchester. It was plastered with cult move posters and furnished with a couple of battered couches and a pool table. It felt like heaven to me. Some of the lads in bands I knocked around with went on to be very successful, most of them are still involved in music in some way and we are all still in touch.

It was a beautiful time. I was a violet-scented, purple-lipstick-wearing teen goth (who rejected the goth tag entirely) and I spent most of my time with the fit lads in a funk metal band called Retro. They’d all gone to college together and most of them school too, and three of them (including the best-looking one who I have now been in a relationship with for twenty years) were Jewish. 

Bagels and accompaniments from the wonderful Let’s Fress deli in Manchester. credit: Kel Is Eating

Growing up in a one-sheep town in Lancashire, I’d never met any Jewish people before. All I knew of Judaism was what I’d learned in religious studies classes at school. When we started hanging out, their Jewishness didn’t really register, we were all just long-haired, leather-jacketed rock kids discovering being in bands together. That was until food at their parents’ houses came into the picture. 

At that time, I’d never even eaten a bagel. Look, it was a long time ago and I was a sheltered teen from the middle of nowhere. So a polythene bag of chewy crusted bagels from Cooper’s (aka Let’s Fress) and their accompanying plastic tubs of salty egg mayonnaise, chopped liver and the richest cream cheese ever along with a tiny packet of smoked salmon were a revelation.

Bagels (or beigels) being prepared on Brick Lane London. credit: Kel Is Eating

After a late Saturday night head-banging to More Human Than Human at Jilly’s Rock World, staying over meant this was our Sunday morning treat. Alongside the bagels were golden deep-fried balls of seasoned, slightly sweetened fish - gefilte fish - and I was immediately bewitched by these almost Scandi-tasting fritters. Whenever I open the fridge now to find that my mother-in-law has dropped some off, I yelp with excitement. My partner doesn’t quite get what the fuss is about. I found the below recipe in my phone pics from Pascale Perez Rubin of the Jewish Telegraph. I think I’ll make it soon.

A recipe for fish balls from The Jewish Telegraph

There would always be a pot of chicken soup on the stove too, though not always, to crush an idyllic image, made fresh from chicken carcasses. More often, as in many modern working families, it was prepared from a base of packet soup just like the ones I had grown up eating as a child. But rather than Knorr cream of chicken, this was Osem chicken noodle. Vivid yellow with flecks of herbs and carrot and thin, short vermicelli. Some fresh carrot slices were added too, cooked for hours in the bubbling soup until butter soft. There was actual chicken from the kosher butcher roasted alongside, the crispiest, most deeply salted chicken I have tasted. No other chicken tastes like this pre-cooked and re-crisped in the oven kosher chicken. I don’t know what the secret is but it’s incredible. 

Some of that rendered fat would be added to my beloved knaidlach. Made from Matzo meal (which I immediately adopted as my store cupboard dried breadcrumb of choice - try it) lubed up with eggs and that chicken grease, moulded into balls and poached in the chicken soup, soaking up those meaty, salty flavours. A more comforting, gently flavoured treat is hard to find. 

Passover at my mother-in-law’s. Credit: Kel Is Eating

I am an out-and-out atheist but I love the ritual of religious festivals and how they often revolve around food. I appreciate the symbolism of the glass seder plate at Passover which reminds us of the Jewish people’s terrible struggle from slavery to freedom. It’s traditionally topped with vegetables dipped in salt water (to symbolise the tears shed by slaves), a piece of bone (to symbolise the outstretched arm of god), a boiled burnt egg (to symbolise the sacrifice of life), some bitter herb, usually fresh horseradish (to remind us of the bitterness of slavery), and a paste of grated apple (to represent the clay the Israelite slaves used to make bricks and mortar). I can’t say the same for the symbolism of the Matchmakers and tinned ham of my family Christmases but then Christians haven’t been persecuted anywhere near as much as Jews (or most other peoples) have. From oppression comes a doubling down on cultural identity.

Kosher wine at Passover. credit: Kel Is Eating

I also love that I get to drink four cups of wine at Passover. Kosher wine is a unique experience in itself. Most of all I love being with family and enjoying, once a year is enough, my mother-in-law’s signature dish of three types of roasted protein served with potatoes five ways. 

Now I seek out Jewish food whenever I can. I always get bagels (or beigels) on Brick Lane when I go to London and whenever I head to the States or Canada I’m on the hunt for a Jewish deli like Katz in New York or Caplansky’s in Toronto. I love Let’s Fress in Manchester but I think it’s surprising there aren’t more really exciting Jewish food places in Manchester, the area with the biggest Jewish population outside London. I feel like there is a gap here for a top-tier Jewish restaurant.

I wanna hear your views:

Do you have any hot tips for Jewish food I should check out anywhere in the world?

What foods from other cultures have made their way into your life through family or love or friendship?