The New Jewish Holiday Cookbook [Hardcover]

Gloria Kaufer Greene has really outdone herself with her New Jewish Holiday Cookbook. Not only do I love the kosher recipes, but I love the way Ms. Greene explains the significance of the particular food to each holiday. Not being a gourmet cook myself, I have found the recipes to be easy to follow and wonderful to eat! This book has allowed me the joy of creating epicurian holiday traditions with my family and friends. It is the only Jewish cookbook that I need (and want) in my kitchen!

I know from my name you wouldn't know that I was Jewish, but that is because my husband is not. I had to tell, that my mother-in-law picked up your book and started skimming while we were Kitchen Kibbutzin' and decided it helped her understand the holidays and customs better than anything else. She HAD to have a copy, so we got her one as (of all things)a Christmas gift! She absolutely loves it. She says that it is so easy to read and the recipees are easy to follow! She can't wait to treat me and the gang to some of the goodies she discovered from your book. She said that it isn't just a cookbook. It is her special reference book that helps us celebrate and rejoice in the Jewish customs/traditions together.

As for me.... well let's just say that I never put it away! It is a staple in my kitchen as important to me as salt and pepper! That is why it happenned to be out on the table for my MIL to discover! LOVE IT!

`The New Jewish Holiday Cookbook' by Gloria Kauler Greene and `The Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking' by Phyllis Glazer and Miryam Glazer are two leading representatives of a great cookbook subgenre which may be unique among all cookbook flavors in that they represent that extraordinary relation between Judaism and food. Like the exceptional `Jewish Holiday Cookbook' by Joan Nathan and unlike the encyclopedic `New York Times Cookbook of Jewish Recipes', both books spend much space and words on the practice of kashrut or keeping kosher. But this is not the whole story. There are numerous Jewish culinary traditions which are not directly related to kashrut, such as the traditions surrounding the number of challah loaves baked for the Shabbat or the number of bumps on the challah loaves (The magic number here is 12, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, so the tradition is to have 12 loaves. More practical is the tradition to have two loaves each with 6 bumps created by the braiding of the bread before baking.)

There is one major difference among these three books which is evident in their titles. Ms. Glazer's book deals with `festival' cooking while Nathan and Greene deal with `Holiday' cooking. The subtle difference here is that the festival book does not cover Shabbat and the two `holiday' books do.

To a non-Jew, my guess is that since there are 52 shabbats in a year, while there are at most seven or eight major `festivals', it is much more important to have a book covering Shabbat as well as the yearly holidays. Between Greene and the Glazers, I find at least one other big difference in that Ms. Greene gives far more coverage to the creation of challah, which may be the single most important Jewish holiday recipe in any of these books, as it seems to be the one food which tradition calls for at every Shabbat. In fact, even though Joan Nathan's book combines two books, one of which is on Jewish holiday baking, Ms. Greene's treatment of challah, at least in the details she give for braiding several different numbers of dough strands is the most extensive. Among the recipes from the three books, the amateur bread baker in me prefers Ms. Nathan's recipe, as it uses the least (1 packet) yeast and calls for the longest raising time. She (and Ms. Greene) also use my preferred `active dry yeast' rather than the `rapid rise' yeast.

All three books deal in depth with Jewish holiday traditions, although Ms. Glazer and Ms. Greene seem to have better rabbinical sources and seem to be more dedicated to the details of the traditions. Of the three, Ms. Greene seems to touch me more effectively in her discussion of these traditions than the other two.

All three writers are primarily from the Ashkenazy tradition, although all three also give fair treatment to Sephardic dishes and menus. If you are really interested in Sephardic menus primarily, Ms. Nathan spends much of her space on Sephardic menus.

If you are willing to take a recommendation from a goyem, I recommend Ms. Greene's book most highly, followed by Ms. Nathan's book for her many baking recipes; however, all three are quality books.

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