Hi, I'm Tammy Proctor. For today's episode, I visit Connecticut in honor of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah.
Connecticut has long had an important Jewish population in its borders, even prior to the founding of the united states when it was a colony. However, Jews in Connecticut faced legal discrimination in the colonial period and up through the early 1800s in regards to voting, education and religious freedom. Jewish cemeteries were even banned until the early 1800s.
Part of the reason for these restrictions had to do with the peculiarity of the Connecticut colony itself. In the colonial period, Connecticut had an official church based around Puritan religious practice, so by law it restricted all other religions, whether Christian or Jewish. Even after the founding of the U.S., Puritanism (known by this time as congregationalism) remained the established state church until 1818, when Connecticut passed a new state constitution.
While other Christian denominations gained rights by the early 1800s, those practicing the Jewish faith continued to face barriers. Finally, in 1843, Jewish congregations were allow to officially incorporate, and in 1847, the first official congregation was born – Beth Israel in Hartford. By the early 1900s, the population of Jews in the state increased significantly with the rise in Eastern European immigration to the region. Today more than 118,000 people in Connecticut identify as Jewish, or 3.3% of the state's population.
But why is that early history of restricted rights important to the history of food?
Without recognized synagogues and congregations, Jewish families had to maintain their traditions, celebrate their holidays, and practice their rituals in more informal settings, such as homes. I think that food probably functioned as a powerful way to affirm religious faith and identity and to create a sense of community. If one could share a Passover Seder or bring a basket of kosher foods to those sitting shiva with a dead loved one, the ties of community were reinforced, despite official bans on the faith.
One particularly important period in the Jewish calendar is the autumn, when Rosh Hashanah (new year) and Yom Kippur (atonement) occur. Together they function as a powerful time of self-reflection about the year, remembrance and atonement. In each case certain foods are associated with the holidays.
According to a Jewish cookbook first published in 1941 by Mildred Grossberg Bellin that our library special collections owns, the most important foods for Rosh Hashanah are honey and fruit, especially fruit not yet eaten that year. An example is pomegranate, which was a fruit associated with the eastern Mediterranean. In New England, more common fruits associated with Rosh Hashanah are apples and concord grapes, both ripening and serving as "new fruits" in the weeks surrounding the holiday.
Also traditional for the Jewish new year is challah, the brioche-like bread. However, for Rosh Hashanah it is typically prepared in a round form rather than a long braided loaf. The challah, along with apple slices or grapes, then can be dipped in honey as part of the celebration of the new year.
Cookbook author Bellin also provides a full sample menu for the holiday, which includes a chicken matzo ball soup, roast chicken, gefillte fish, a potato gratin, kishkes (a kind of sausage) and various fruits with honey cake.
Thus for Rosh Hashanah, one can eat the sweet fruits and honey of the harvest while reflecting on what has gone before and what is to come. Shanah tovah to those who celebrate.
Find Smitten Kitchen's Best Challah recipe here.
