The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods

Description

Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern are two of the leaders of the movement to revolutionise Ashkenazi cuisine. Together, they co-founded The Gefilteria in 2012, a Brooklyn-grown business that sets out to reimagine Jewish classics while championing Old World slow food techniques. Here in their first-ever cookbook including 100-plus recipes pulled deep from the culinary histories of Eastern Europe and the diaspora community of North America, they draw inspiration from the legacies of Jewish pickle shops, bakeries, appetising shops, dairy restaurants, delicatessens, and holiday kitchens. Tapping into the zeitgeist of rediscovering Old World food traditions like pickling, fermenting, and baking, at the heart of which are the values of resourcefulness and seasonality, The Gefilte Manifesto encourages anyone and everyone to incorporate healthy and vital Ashkenazi recipes into their everyday repertoire.

Liz Alpern, co-founder, The Gefilteria: Liz got her start in the Jewish food world working with acclaimed cookbook author Joan Nathan. She curates and cooks for pop-up events and boutique shops and is an MBA Candidate at CUNY Baruch College. She has been featured on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, as well as in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Saveur, and The Wall Street Journal. Jeffrey Yoskowitz, co-founder, The Gefilteria: Jeffrey trained as a pickler at Adamah Foods where he fell in love with the art of lacto-fermentation, and has worked in the food world as an entrepreneur and a consultant for small businesses. He grew up visiting New York's finest Jewish food institutions and has written on food culture for the Atlantic, NY Times, Slate, and Gastronomica.

"This might be the cookbook of the year." --Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, Off The Menu Podcast "The Gefilte Manifesto is a comprehensive guide to contemporary Jewish cooking complete with sharp writing, beautiful photography, and robust flavor. Jeffrey and Liz have figured out how to take Bubbe's cooking and pass the baton to the modern-day cook." --Michael Solomonov, chef of Zahav and author of Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking "I can't say enough good things about this bright, compelling offering that beautifully manages to frame traditional Ashkenazi cuisine with perfect twists and newness. It's no small feat to retain the character of an old, emotionally held culinary culture while imparting fresh life to the standards. Jeffrey and Liz have nailed it not only with outstanding recipes but also with history and stories and context, impeccably written. The passion of yet another generation carries it forward; we Jewish mothers can be collectively entranced, inspired, and proud." --Mollie Katzen, author of The Heart of the Plate: Vegetarian Recipes for a New Generation "What a gorgeous book! The Gefilte Manifesto is simultaneously an homage to cultural traditions and a reclaiming of these traditions to make them relevant to our contemporary lives. With so many of us searching for ways to feel more connected to food, this book is a great resource. I look forward to sharing it with family and friends!" --Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation "The Gefilte Manifesto is a delightful book. I am so proud of this next generation that is further informing our palates with the fermentation and preserving techniques of our forefathers and -mothers." --Joan Nathan, author of King Solomon's Table "This may change your mind about gefilte fish or open new culinary doors for you." --Dixie D. Vereen, The Washington Post "Sometimes all it takes is one recipe to justify a new cookbook. The chicken soup in The Gefilte Manifesto uses chicken parts that you brown before making the soup, something I have never done. But it works, enhancing depth and color in the broth." --Florence Fabricant, The New York Times "A glossy new cookbook with fresh takes on traditional Jewish recipes." --Kara Baskin, The Boston Globe "Borscht and gefilte fish are back, reprised as haute fare in this era of DIY style and old-timey authenticity. In a new cookbook of Ashkenazi food, Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern recast these and other humble, much-maligned specimens of Old World cuisine as the unlikely stars of a culinary movement." --Adam Chandler, The Atlantic "A blend of enthusiasm and expertise, The Gefilte Manifesto, their fabulous debut cookbook, offers Alpern and Yoskowitz's take on time-honored comfort foods with their heady flavors and wonderful textures, like Rustic Matzoh Balls in Classic Chicken Soup (aka Jewish penicillin), Chopped Liver Pate, light Cauliflower and Mushroom Kugel and Wine-Braised Brisket with Butternut Squash. Grandma never made Cardamom Pickled Grapes, Challah with a Marble Rye Twist or Dark Chocolate and Roasted Beet Ice Cream, but she'd approve of these delicious innovations and recognize their Ashkenazi souls. L'chaim!" --Sybil Pratt, BookPage "A lively collection of Ashkenazi standards -- some with a twist and others left to wander back to the old country." --Leanne Italie, Associated Press "From the minute I opened up The Gefilte Manifesto, a Flatiron Books publication, I realized that Yoskowitz and Alpern had struck gold, taking on traditional favorites and blowing them out of the water in a hip and trendy culinary renaissance." --Sandy Eller, The Jewish Press "Each recipe is not just a recipe but a story, a nugget, a web that connects us to our past and hopes to send us into the future." --Johanna Ginsberg, New Jersey Jewish News "In the pages of this beautifully written, accessible cookbook, Alpern and Yoskowitz recover and reinvent Eastern European Jewish classics and add a bunch of recipes that likely would have baffled their great-grandparents. Thus there are instructions -- and gorgeous photographs -- for sour dills, bagels and home-cured pastrami, and yes, gefilte fish three ways. Right alongside these classics are recipes for making Ashkenazi kimchi, root vegetable latkes and dark chocolate and roasted beet ice cream." --Bari Weiss, NY1 "Gefilte gets an A on holiday taste test." --Alix Wall, The Forward