How a dinner can connect the world (even when world is shacking)
On Rosh HaShanah from Tunisia to India
Sunday wakes up giving start to the hebrew week. A rounded cycle comes to an end surrounded by demolishing news: Fiona shacking Puerto Rico’s ground, Masha Amini’s dead shacking the iranian stablishment, Ucrania filling the news with advancing positions, Armenia on a countdown for the upcoming attack from Azerbaiyan.
On these circunstances, to name a few, where even some rabbis seem to have lost the path to the Torah, there is an upcoming dinner able to connect the world from Tunisia to India, from small families to big communities, from hebrew to french, from pain to faith, from despair to strenght.
Symbolic foods turn blessings into actions, ground to the material world the values of the spiritual realm.
Rosh Hashanah, the jewish new year’s eve arrives today. Comes to give us the chance of starting once again, reflecting on how much of that chaos was made by our own hands and how much can our own will work on creating a better scenario for all of us.
The dinner comes along the most symbolic foods. Pomegranate seeds, honey, apple, challah, fish or lamb's head, leek, pumpkin, dates, carrot, beetroot and spinach, foods that turn blessings into actions, ground to the material world the values of the spiritual realm.
Being that the chore and purpose of the dinner, every family adapts its meaning representation to their own roots, customs and traditions all over the world.
From a cozy and warm flat in Paris, Debora enjoys accompanied with her daughters the long-lasting Grandma’s specialities. Coming from a lineage of a Tunisian jewish, garlic, called “tume” in arabic, substitutes the dates on the table. The wise old hands use them on a juiciy omelette with aromatic herbs. The garlic represents a year of peace and calm and it is Debora’s Grandma wish to help on that goal from the very first bite.
"My grandmother makes sure that the year will be sweet. She doesn't just put a head of garlic or a piece of celery on the table. She prepares everything we eat in a manner that it becomes an absolute pleasure", Debora, Paris.
Likewise, on this tunisian french jewish family the spinach, which symbolises the disappearance of enemies, is turned into a sufganiotic creation. A preparation halfway between a fritter and a batter spinach, with a clear note: “no opponent will stop us from enjoying every morsel of life this year.”
In the decades that the family has been gathering for Rosh Hashanah in Paris, they kept using a precious Haggadah, a compilation of blessings, that intertwines French and Hebrew. A loyal witness of long cooking evenings.
Catalan is at Nuria’s dinner the language of coexistance at Rosh Hashanah from Ashdod, Israel. Her table is a wonderful and peculiar combination of ingredients. The table is presided by the foods that will be accompanied by the blessings: fresh dates in the central part, pomegranate, for an abundant year of positive deeds, cabbage, to liberate the way from enemies, sliced pumpkin, to pull out all the negativity, and apple, honey and challah agullah for a sweet new year full of goodness.
While the simanim, the symbolic foods, are placed in the center, around them the night’s menu awaits. On one hand, Nuria’s speciality: chicken wings with soy sauce and honey, a candied version for new year’s eve. On the other hand, ossobuco, a italian dish of veal commonly cooked with vegetables, with a Catalan twist on this occasion: camagrocs, yellow trumpet, hydrated with black tea and cooked in osso buco sauce.
What’s more, this catalan-hebrew dinner in Israel is framed by two unforgettable desserts: honey cake, a classic, and sacher, made all through by the 13-year-old daughter, fact adding a beautiful glimpse to a memorable day.
Beyond the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, a Bene Israel family based in Toronto welcomes the freshly start with ingredients from Canada surrounded by indian scents.
Coming from a full lineage of Bene Israel, with ancestors growing up between Mumbai and Israel, their table have the diligence of the ones who live in diaspora and the taste of the oriental markets.
At Ariella’s, the grandaughter, table, the simanim, simbolic foods, are carefully placed with the care of whom that were not able to do it for a long time. Cut, clean, arranged on small plates where its colour shines, unusually, stronger.
Besides pomegranate, challah agulah, beetroot, leek or dates, green beans make its appearence to represent prosperity and the chance of sharing it along the community. The head, of the lamb, replaces the fish head commonly used in the Ashkenazi tradition while brings the same meaning to the table: be the leader, the head, create your own path.
Without doubt, the dish that characterises Bene Israel’s Rosh Hashanah above others, is the dessert: Pistachio Halwa. In Ariella's words:
"Halwa is influenced by Indian cuisine, although it is really a very unique product of the Bene Israel community. We make it differently than regular halwa and we make it especially for Rosh Hashanah, it is a process that can take up to 5 hours and involves constant stirring"
A preparation based on milk, cornstarch, pistachio, cardamom and toasted almonds, which Ariella confesses, has managed to make in three times less time with a few tricks.
A dessert, a dinner, that reminds us is not about the ingredients but the intention, the will to create better, the profound connection, the self-reflection and the decisive commitment to make of this year a more compassionate, free of hate and full of wisdom, opportunity.