PASSOVER EDITION 5784 SECTION C PAGE 6
Written by Rachel Ringler
JNathan had just settled into a conversation about her latest book. my life in recipeswhen a food writer gets distracted.
Joanne Nathan is the author of My Life in Recipes.
She said a media personality was scheduled to come for lunch the next day, but realized she was missing two ingredients for the matzah balls she had planned to serve. She stopped and looked for what she needed, thinking about what alternatives she could use.
A few days later, Nathan reported success. She said the luncheon was “a lot of fun” and the matzah balls were delicious, but she added that she “could have cooked a little more.”
That candid response is consistent with the Joanne Nathan readers have come to know from reading and cooking in her 12 cookbooks.
Nathan, now 81, has published a 436-page autobiography. my life in recipesThis book looks back at her storied career, from her childhood in Providence, Rhode Island, to the research and writing that made her the undisputed leading Jewish food writer. Nathan hasn’t spent much time thinking about her broader impact, she says.
“I think I’ve made a huge contribution to the Jewish world. I never thought about it,” he said. “I think it was important to humanize Jewish food around the world and help people understand that it is a part of life.”
This story is my life in recipes Its origins date back to before Nathan was born in 1943. Many of the recipes that accompany and enrich her memoir have been passed down within her family, like the matzah balls (tweaked with nutmeg and freshly grated ginger) . The sweet and sour fish reminds her of her father’s favorite dish growing up in Augsburg, Germany. Challah, made with mashed potatoes, made by her German great-grandmother. And my mom’s coleslaw.
Nathan says the coleslaw, made with orange juice and pickle juice, is a copy of a recipe that first appeared in a 1901 cookbook published by a Jewish woman to help recent immigrants, many of whom were Jewish, integrate into American life. I believe that.
“Sometimes there are family salads or secret salads that we like to keep within our families. These are things I’ve learned and respected over the years of writing,” Nathan said. “she [my mom] It was probably originally taken from reconciliation cookbook And she played with it. That’s what home cooks do. ”
More recipes from the new book, CoroThe Ethiopian barley snacks were picked up from friends and people in remote areas that Nathan met and became friends over his years as a food writer.
In 1970, at the age of 27, Nathan completed graduate school in French literature at the University of Michigan and worked as a bilingual French-English assistant at the United Nations before moving to Israel and eventually working in foreign reporting for Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek. Became a government official. In this position, she became intrigued by the delicious meals served in the homes of the people of Jerusalem.
It culminated in my first cookbook, The Flavor of Jerusalem, which I wrote with my friend Judy Stacy Goldman.
During that same 30-month period, she underwent a definitive diet that changed her life. She and Korek were invited to a local Arab village for a meeting. Mukhtar, or the village chief. Korek didn’t want to go. Mukhtar They wanted to build a new road, but that would be very expensive. But they were gone, and by the time the languorous and sumptuous meal in the palace was over; MukhtarA house was built, a road was built in the village, and Nathan had a lifelong career.
“That meal showed me how food can break down barriers and bring people together,” she wrote.
“That’s when I realized that food is not decorative, but central and worthy of study, and that we can explore the world through food.”
After returning to the United States, Nathan married Alan Gerson, a lawyer he met in Israel, in 1974.
The couple moved to Boston, where she studied at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
While there, she wrote a paper called “Food Characteristics: An Overlooked Component of Ethnic Identity” for a class on ethnicity and politics taught by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan was soon elected to the United States Senate to represent New York.
Nathan also wrote a column about ethnic cuisine. boston globeand when she moved to Washington, D.C., with her husband in 1977, she found a niche focusing on Jewish food at the Washington Post.
MItchel Davis, a food consultant who worked for the James Beard Foundation for 27 years, most recently as its chief strategy officer, describes Nathan as having “a tremendous passion and precision for understanding and translating the different food cultures around the world.” , and one of the few women with the ability to translate.” She influenced the world and had a wide range of impacts as a result.
“If Julia [Child] That was the first time I had Joanne in mind, along with Marcela Hazan for Italian cuisine, Madhur Jaffrey for Indian cuisine and Paula Wolfert for Moroccan cuisine,” he said.
“Because of her tenacity and precision and finding the story and getting it right, she did for Jewish cuisine what others have done for other cuisines.”
Nathan listens by going into people’s homes and kitchens and listening to their stories.Food writer Leah Koenig is the author of seven cookbooks, including an encyclopedia. jewish cookbookrecalled a trip he and Nathan took to Israel in 2010 to explore what Koenig called “the then-burgeoning local food scene.”
“It was an honor to see her succeed as a researcher,” Koenig said.
“I remember one day in Jerusalem.” Shuk So she literally followed her nose to the kitchen. There, a man was preparing an interesting chickpea dish. I watched in awe as she asked him question after question.
“Her genuine enthusiasm and curiosity absolutely came through, and she left with stories, recipes, friends, and resources to come back to.”
Cookbook author Adina Sussman points out that Nathan doesn’t just talk to people to hear about food, he also cooks with them.
Cookbook author Katja Goldman spent several afternoons with Nathan in his kitchen about 30 years ago, once making challah shapes and another making stuffed items like Italian tortellini and Chinese wontons. We talked about the types of pasta we made.
Goldman showed Nathan how to make it. kreplachEastern European meat-stuffed dumplings served in soup.
“She showed me how to do it, we talked about the process, and she asked me a lot of questions,” Goldman said.
By showing interest in people, Nathan gets people to open up and share his recipes.
“When you want their recipes, you’re accepting them as human beings,” Nathan said.
“They’ll share with you. It’s about being yourself with someone and showing interest. You have to go into their home.”
IIn 1994, Nathan won the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook for his fifth cookbook. american jewish foodIn it, she records, in her own words, “how diverse Jewish food is.” Most of her recipes are attributed to individuals who shared them with Nathan, along with an introduction about the roots of her recipes.
“She makes the point very early on american jewish food “Jews have always adapted to where they went and utilized local ingredients,” said Matt Sartwell, managing partner of Kitchen Arts and Letters, a Manhattan culinary bookstore. Told.
In a chapter of her memoir titled “My Holiday is Passover,” she shares a recipe for gefilte fish using halibut, a saltwater fish. This is a variation on the classic gefilte fish, which is made from whitefish and carp found in Eastern European lakes. .
Jake Cohen, 30, a cookbook author and self-proclaimed nice Jewish boy, credits Nathan’s work in finding American Jewish food and Jewish food from around the world as “the reason I’m able to do what I do today.” are listed. She paved her way. ”
Nathan, Cohen, “became a pioneer in preserving tradition and family recipes. I had a recipe box with my great-grandmother’s recipes. There are no cookbooks to cook the dishes if they aren’t from the family.” What she did was provide a resource for people who don’t have family recipes.”
Cohen said the recipes Nathan writes are different from the recipes he was trained to write in culinary school.
“I write in a calm and scientific way.” [recording] It will be easier to convey the recipe verbally,” he said. “She’s channeling it through her senses. It feels like an oral tradition passed down from her grandmother.”
IIn a world of food that’s increasingly contentious over the origins and cultural connections of certain foods, Nathan represents, in some ways, a throwback to a simpler time. When podcast host Carla Swisher recently asked Nathan if Israeli food was stolen from Arab cuisine, Nathan said he doesn’t delve into the politics of food.
But Nathan also said the hummus was “not stolen,” adding that it is popular throughout the region. She credits American Jews, who began traveling to Israel regularly in the late 1960s, with popularizing chickpeas in America.
She also said she was saddened by the friendships between Jewish or Israeli food writers and Arab food writers that were “destroyed” during the current Israel-Hamas war.
She said she wanted a ceasefire and praised the efforts of World Central Kitchen chef Jose Andrés, who is feeding Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (This conversation took place before the group ceased operations after the Israeli military accidentally killed seven World Central Kitchen employees.)
She proposed a dish that could one day commemorate the October 7 attack on Israel, just as hamantaschen is a symbol of survival on the holiday of Purim. “Mujaddallah”, a lentil and bulgur dish that appears in “ my life in recipesNathan said it’s popular with both Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, and is often eaten before Tisha v’Av, the Jewish day of remembrance, so it’s perfect for both.
“Why do we need to do something happy to commemorate a tragedy?” asked Nathan. “But it’s delicious. . . and it’s a rustic dish. That’s what I use.”
nathan started my life in recipesShe claims this will be her last book. “I wrote a dozen! That’s good!” – when the pandemic hit in 2020.
“My husband had just passed away and it was a time of reflection,” Nathan said. “I saw a body of my work and wanted to share it. It took me a long time to prepare to write because I had to go through all the letters and files. 50 or 60 years. I had to reach out to people I hadn’t talked to in years.”
Nathan’s Rolodex is filled with decades of culinary exploration. But she believes that forging a more intimate relationship around food can be just as powerful as discovering previously unknown food traditions in far-flung places.
“It’s so important for children to talk to their parents and grandparents and find their way into their past and future,” she says.
“We need connection. Otherwise we’ll all be the same. And we don’t want everyone to be the same.”
