I am designing a large eggplant salad factory. The eggplant is burned on open fire and then peeled and passed through some kind of inox steel processing machine. It is a very popular product in Israel. Eggplant is unknown to Ashkenazim and I am slightly allergic to it. The owner is a friend, a Sepharadi Jew called in Ladino Montekyo (in French - Montesquieu).
Thursday, December 09, 2010
The Eggplant Salad Factory
I am designing a large eggplant salad factory. The eggplant is burned on open fire and then peeled and passed through some kind of inox steel processing machine. It is a very popular product in Israel. Eggplant is unknown to Ashkenazim and I am slightly allergic to it. The owner is a friend, a Sepharadi Jew called in Ladino Montekyo (in French - Montesquieu).
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A lot of things were unknown to the Ashkenazim in Israel - hummus, felafel, etc. and yet they took to them. I remember visiting some distant relative of my parents generation in Israel in the 70s and being plied with chazilim, which I confess I was not wild about it at the time (I have since grown to like it more). Baba ganoush is not quite the hit that hummus is among the US general population (hummus is on the verge of becoming a deracinated supermarket staple, just as yogurt and pizza and bagels, all once "ethnic" foods, became all-American) but it is growing in popularity also.
My father remembers that the very Orthodox in his shtetl questioned whether the tomato was kosher, perhaps due to the blood red color of the flesh. Also because the Chasam Sofer had said "everything new is forbidden by the Torah" {חדש אסור מן התורה) and tomatoes were "new". Oddly though, there were no qualms over adopting the New World potato, which is related to the tomato, or the blood red pepper (paprika). Eggplants, though an Old World plant known from antiquity, are also related to the American tomato, pepper and potato (and the deadly nightshade). But they thrive in warmer climates and E. Europe was beyond their growing range, at least before modern innovations such as greenhouses and advances in plant breeding.
K
I was presented with a large variety of salads by my friend, but my dear wife threw them into the trash. She saw some non-natural ingredient like AB-3 or something that sounds synthetic. We are eating only bio-natural nonprocessed non-industrial foods. I rebelled and refused to eat red wild rice with its husk. I like sticky Thai rice. We are becoming crazy. The old kosher rules are also crazy, but at least they dont make you physically or mentally ill. You know.
We are eating only bio-natural nonprocessed non-industrial foods.
I don't know anyone here in Mesa that is having that problem.
I had a manager that, as far as we could tell, lived only on Dr. Pepper and Bud Light. While I was working for him I almost never saw him actually eat anything while he was on the clock.
I could be wrong though, Dr. Pepper could qualify as "all natural".
Russian Jews know eggplant very well.
Perhaps that is a recent innovation though. I know not.
The more southern reaches of the Russian empire had a climate suitable for eggplant - it features in Georgian dishes, Armenian, etc. as well as Russian "eggplant caviar". I would venture that in the northern reaches of the Pale of Settlement (e.g. Poland) it was pretty much unknown. Maybe the Jews of Odessa knew it.
K
I never noticed eggplants till I arrived to Israel. It is an important element in the new Israeli couisine.
I never noticed eggplants till I arrived to Israel. It is an important element in the new Israeli couisine.
At school we had an eggplant dish we called "Eggplant Surprise".
The "surprise" was that it only contained eggplant.
Anon.
You had a cook with a sense of humor.
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