Can any food be considered the most Jewish? And if so, what might it say about the Jewish people?
For the past few years, I have been working on my first full-length book, tentatively titled Chulent: The Most Jewish Food on Earth. To my view, the Shabbat stew (with chulent being its best-known variant in the English-speaking world), truly meets that title’s criteria. Nearly every Jewish community around the world makes some version of this dish — a multi-ingredient, one-pot meal that is prepared on Friday before the weekly Sabbath begins, and then is left to continually slow-cook through the entire night, eventually to be eaten as a hot lunch on Saturday.
In this book, I explore the history of these Shabbat stews from around the world — hamin, chulent, dafina, osavo, t’bit, skhina, pom and more — using them as a way of tracing the routes of Jewish migrations through the Diaspora. I argue that these many dishes are actually just variations on the same dish, evolving in each new location based on available ingredients, climate, local tastes and the conditions under which each Jewish community lived. By looking at the different versions that became popular in each place, we can understand the specific status of Jews wherever we have gone through our long history.
The book also includes many recipes, both historical and contemporary, for worldwide versions of this stew. A few of those recipes can be found in the FREE eCookbook I created, Chulent & Hamin: The Ultimate Jewish Comfort Food, which was designed to promote the main book. I have also launched a sister site to this one: The Chulent Book, which features recipes that people like you have submitted.
I have completed the first draft of the manuscript, am currently editing/rewriting, and am also moving towards finding a publisher. A few options are in the works, but nothing is set yet. But I hope it won’t be much longer before i finalize that, finish my rewrites, and move towards a publication date!
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Together, let’s celebrate this most Jewish of dishes!
