![]() And it heralded the start of the Passover seder, too. Thursday’s fresh carp became Friday night’s first course. They were purchased from the fishmonger early in the week and left to frolic in the tub before their home sacrifice. Many of us have heard stories of fresh carp swimming in bathtubs on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The Jews of Russia and Belarus put beets in their poaching liquid for a pink-tinged fish and broth.Īs the Eastern European Jews left their shtetls, they brought their cuisine with them. Lithuanian gefilte fish was heavy on the pepper. Jews from southern Poland and northern Ukraine served a sweetened fish, since sugar beets were plentiful there. British Jews used saltwater fish like cod or haddock. There were many permutations to the dish, some of which signaled your ancestry. Over time, gefilte fish became synonymous with the shtetl and with Sabbath and holiday meals. Fish was shaped into patties and poached in a seasoned fish broth. Given how time consuming it was to grind the fish and return it to the skin, a new kind of stuffed fish eventually emerged - one that wasn’t stuffed at all. The skin would be stuffed with bread and other fillers, while the bones and head would flavor the broth. Poor families might ask the fishmonger for just the fish head, skin and bones. Before the ground fish is cooked, it is mixed with seasonings, egg and either bread or matzah meal for binding and stretching a little further. That pain, though, is offset with economic gain: You need a relatively small amount of fish to feed many. The downside of gefilte fish is that it takes a lot of time to prepare. ![]() With gefilte fish, you get the fish without the bones. There is also an injunction against picking bones from flesh on the Sabbath, as one might do when eating fish. Gefilte fish, happily, can be made in advance of the Sabbath day, chilled and eaten cold. It is prohibited to light a fire and begin cooking on the Sabbath and most holidays. Gefilte fish even satisfied some religious commandments. They were surrounded by well-stocked rivers, streams and lakes. Plus, for the Jewish communities in Germany and Eastern Europe, it was easy to gain access to the fresh, sweet fish that is ground to make the dish. The rabbis considered fish to be the perfect food to kick off a Sabbath or holiday meal, since fish symbolize the coming of the Messiah and fertility. It was a popular dish for Catholics during Lent, when eating meat was forbidden.īy the Middle Ages, that Catholic dish had migrated into the Jewish kitchen under the moniker gefilte (stuffed) fish. The first mention of gefuelten hechden (stuffed pike) comes from a 700-year-old, non-Jewish, German cookbook in which poached and mashed fish was flavored with herbs and seeds, stuffed back into the skin and roasted. The funny thing is that gefilte fish didn’t start out as a Jewish food. For good reason - it’s been part of the Eastern European Jewish diet for hundreds of years. Either way, it would probably appear on most people’s short list of classic Ashkenazi foods. Some see gefilte fish as a delicacy, others as something too disgusting to contemplate. This article originally appeared on The Nosher.
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