As K. wrote in the comments, we are adapted to eat cooked food, therefore our small teeth and weak stomach. We are not made to process and digest raw carrots nor celery leaves. Therefore, I reject the theoretical basis of Paleo diets. What is the food that goes with my nature?
Since it appears that human evolution has accelerated in recent times and much of what I am was formed in historic times, I dont have to look very far. I never met my grandparents not older family members, But I know what my Mother cooked and I like it. It was Hungarian Jewish food. It certainly included schtrudels of green baked apples and whipped cream.
The Jews of Hungary, as far as I know, had a relatively comfortable living standard. Food was abundant and the Jews soon adopted Hungarian plates, which are as different from European cuisine as the Magyar language. Hungarian Jews made always a big thing of food and it was central in any family or social meeting. Hungary was so prosperous that attracted large immigration from Germany, Galitzia (Jews) and other surrounding countries.
Conclusion: My ancestors evolved to eat elaborate gourmet food. That is my nature. I have convinced myself and am going to eat Hungarian salami with kimmel bread. Then start my work day till midnight.
About the illustration: During Pessach we eat unleavened bread - motze - to remind ourselves how our ancestors suffered during the Exodus. Then Hungarian Jews invented the motze-torta.
5 comments:
I remember as a young child, in South Africa, eating unleavened bread with the Jewish family next door. It was, if I remember correctly, called "Matzos".
The parents explained to me, it was meant to be an act of suffering, but I quite enjoyed it.
They were kind people, the father a tough Polish builder, who had been in the South African army with my father,and 3 sons, all of whom remain in South Africa, although one lived in Israel for a while.
Anon.
It is matzos, unleavened bread, eated to symbolize the hard conditions of the Exodus. Hungarian speaking Jews pronounce everything with a strong accent and love to eat everything with sugar and whipped cream. Even matzos. Hungarian Jews tended to emigrate to the USA and Australia. I think South African and Rhodesian Jews are mostly from Lituania. They like everything tasting like pickled radish.
The ultra-Orthodox do not eat gebrokts - matzoh that has been wetted after baking. The matzoh might have a pocket of unmixed flour hidden inside. When this flour becomes wet it begins to ferment and become chometz (leavened) and the consumption of chometz on Pesach is a grave sin. Matzoh is fraught with danger. It is required to eat it at the seders but otherwise the ultra frum avoid it as much as possible and don't use it as an ingredient in other dishes. Better to eat foods that have no chance of being chometz - potatoes and such.
K
How do they make the mass without water?
Of course the dough for baking the matzahs is made with flour and water. The ultra-Orthodox eat "shmurrah" (from shomer) matzah - the grain and then the flour has been continuously watched from the time of harvest to see that it has never become wet. Once the water is contact with the flour , the rabbis determined that fermentation (or actually "souring", as in sour dough - fermentation of alcohol is not forbidden on Pesach, nor is chemical leavening (baking powder)- chometz means sour) begins in 18 minutes. As long as the matzoh is put in the oven within 18 minutes of the time that water is added, it is not chometz (as long as it remains dry thereafter). The 18 minute rule applies even in commercial matzoh bakeries. Of course there the equipment is designed to conform. In the handmade matzoh bakeries they set a timer for 18 minutes and whatever dough is not rolled out and in the oven in 18 minutes must be discarded (it could be eaten outside of Passover but as a practical matter they throw it out).
K
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