a recipe for a sweet new year

Grandma's tzimmes

September welcomes in the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah, kindling the hope that this coming year will be filled with happiness, good health and plenty of sweetness.

Tradition, memories and inherited recipes influence the celebratory feasting of the symbolic foods from our biblical and familial heritage. The significance of sweetness, fruitfulness, abundance and new beginnings are represented on each table as blessings are recited for each one known as ‘simanim’, as written down in Jewish law as the food indicators customary for bringing in a bountiful new year.

Apple, honey, pomegranates and fish are the widely familiar foods of Rosh Hashanah.

Slices of fresh apple are traditionally dipped in lashings of runny honey, anticipating a sweet new year ahead with the new fruits of the tree. The honey cake, called lekach in Yiddish illustrates the journey of the Jewish diaspora from European descent, evolving from kitchens in Italy during the 12th century. Originally a dense, sweet and lightly spiced cake it was made from breadcrumbs and honey. Recipes have adapted over the millenia with the honey cake dark, rich and moist with flavours of floral and herbaceous honey. The sweet aromas waft through Jewish kitchens around the globe days before the festival begins, as honey cakes are made in batches to last until after the fast of Yom Kippur, only to be devoured within hours of the first meal.

The seasonal pomegranate, one of the seven species indigenous to the biblical landscape contains hundreds of bright red jewels that are considered a metaphor for the commandments in the Torah. There are 613 written commandments that were handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai and it is said the same number of seeds are found in each pomegranate, symbolising the good deeds or mitzvot that will be undertaken in every new year.

The traditional Ashkenazi gefilte fish is served as the starter of the festive meal. Also known as chopped or poached fish it is usually made from hake or carp. Originally a German dish it was as popular with Jews as it was with Catholics and started out as a whole fish stuffed to the gills with a minced fish. By the 16th century the whole fish was discarded and the minced fish was turned into patties, poached in water and served with a slice of carrot on top, for a “fruitful and fertile” new year. Gefilte fish balls are minced with onion and seasoning and can be sweetened or left savoury. Still poached in fish stock in Sephardic kitchens, Jewish delis and households in England and America also enjoy them fried in vegetable oil for a crisp coating similar to a fish cake.

The lesser known symbolic foods and customary to be eaten at the Rosh Hashanah table include the gourd, a biblical fruit from the Cucurbitaceae family, as well as leeks or cabbage. Gourds, leeks and cabbages make delicious vegetable accompaniments when cooked with legumes, spices and fragrant herbs and the signature Levantine stuffed leaves or vegetables, using cabbage and squash packed with jewelled rice, couscous or freekeh make for an vegetarian or vegan main dish. The most surprising and unpalatable of all the symbolic foods is the presence of the inedible head of a sheep or fish that is supposed to sit proudly on the table so that we may commence Rosh Hashanah ‘at the head and not at the tail”.

The tasty carrot and the deliciously sweet date are also characteristic of the festive table which are cooked together in another traditional Ashkenazi dish called tzimmes meaning ‘to make a fuss’ in Yiddish. Tzimmes was a cheap, rustic slow cooked amalgamation of sweetened root vegetables, that was made for celebrations and festive meals by the Jews of Eastern Europe, causing much excitement as it made its entrance.

The matriarchs often made tzimmes as a one pot dish with brisket, a cheaper cut of meat bought on the religious festivals, and made from a recipe handed down through the generations. Over the centuries, better cuts of meat were used and dried fruits added such as the medjool date, apricot or golden raisin for a more opulent dish.

My grandma always made tzimmes at Rosh Hashanah from a recipe that I only recently discovered was passed down to her from her mother, and her mother before her. I can still taste the deliciously sweet, sticky carrots slow cooked to mingle with the soft meat and pieces of potatoes cooked in lashings of beef fat. It always remained true to the Ashkenazi style of cooking, simple and effortless to make, delicious and filling, and with a lack of method synonymous with authenticity and traditional cooking, “cover with water and cook and cook until water disappears”.

This is my grandmother’s recipe in her handwriting, preserved on a tea towel.

As with most religious festivals of all denominations, feasting encompasses tradition and the passing on of the culinary memories of the generations before us, to all those who share our table.

May you feast well this Rosh Hashanah and have a happy, healthy and sweet new year… enjoy!