UW-Madison senior Julie Auerbach cannot eat her favorite candy. It is not that Starbursts are unhealthy or have too much sugar, but they are not kosher. Starbursts contain gelatin, which is extracted from an animal part considered un-kosher. Auerbach, who is Jewish, has kept kosher all her life in following the Jewish laws of kashrut, meaning suitable.""
Although many Jews do not keep kosher, much of Jewish cuisine and tradition is rooted in kashrut, which creates dietary restrictions.
According to UW-Madison Hillel Rabbi Andrea Steinberger, the specific kashrut laws can be debated and implemented, but food generally falls into three categories: meat, milk and parve (neither meat nor milk). General kashrut laws forbid Jews from consuming meat with milk, shellfish, non-scaled fish and animals that don't chew their own cud and have cloven hooves.
The way in which animals are slaughtered also plays an important role in the kashrut laws. Steinberger said according to kashrut, animals must be killed humanely, with the least amount of possible suffering. The way in which Jews maintain these laws also plays an important role in Jewish cuisine.
""If a person can use intentional eating in order to think about how they eat and what they eat and what they are doing when they are eating, that I would say is just as much a part of how a person eats kosher [as the kashrut laws],"" said Steinberger.
In recent years, many Jewish communities have incorporated organic and fair-trade guidelines into consumption. For example, many synagogues have started serving fair-trade coffee. According to Steinberger, these changing practices are a way in which people can point to how Judaism changes in response to modernity.
One aspect of Judaism that has never changed, however, is Shabbat, the weekly Jewish Sabbath that takes place Friday nights after sun down. It is one of the most important Jewish holidays. Shabbat dinners often include challah, which is a braided egg bread, wine and a main meat dish, such as roast chicken or brisket. Some popular side dishes include potato or noodle kugel (similar to a casserole) and tzimmes, stewed sweetened carrots or other roasted vegetables, are often served as well.
Hillel and Ofek Shalom, an off-campus vegetarian Jewish co-op, provide food to UW students as well as to the larger Madison community so they are able to partake in dinners and events that might not otherwise be available to them.
Both the Hillel and Ofek Shalom serve traditional Jewish food and non-traditional food, though what is served at Shabbat dinner can change from week to week. Currently, Hillel provides kosher meals three times a week.
""They are building a new Hillel where they're going to have kosher meals every day,"" Auerbach said.
""They also just built another kosher dining hall in Chadbourne. So from the organizations, it is easy to get kosher food. And Trader Joe's just recently added kosher meat. But [Kosher meat] is not as easily accessible to buy as I had hoped.""
For students who try to keep kosher at school, finding kosher meat is often the biggest challenge. Auerbach said this aspect of keeping kosher has been most difficult for her.
""It really only became a problem for me freshman year when I didn't have a kitchen, and I wasn't as involved in Hillel or Chabad at that point,"" Auerbach said. ""It was difficult because I didn't get all the proper nutrients I needed in my diet.""
Hillel will sometimes have Chinese or Mexican food along with more traditional food. Ofek Shalom often serves curries, rice and lentil soups, keeping with the house's vegetarian guidelines.
A different meal is served every week, and only challah is consistently a part of the meal, according to Susie Levy, a resident in the Ofek Shalom co-op.
However, the recent Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, calls for more traditional food. Hanukkah foods, such as latkes - fried potato pancakes that are often served with applesauce or sour cream - and fried jelly doughnuts called sufganiyot, remind Jews of the Hanukkah story. In the story, the Jews had enough oil to burn for only one night, but it lasted for eight days. Jews often eat food fried in oil to commemorate the tale.
Passover, for many Jews, is the biggest and most important holiday of the year, especially when it comes to food. During Passover, Jews are forbidden to eat leavened bread and instead eat matzah, a cracker-like flatbread. Some of the best-known Jewish foods have matzah as a main ingredient, such as matzah ball soup and matzah brei, a dish that includes matzah and fried eggs.
Sweets such as rugelach, hammentaschen and babka all play an important part in Jewish cuisine. Rugelach are rolled-up cookies filled with preserves or chocolate. Hammentaschen have similar fillings, but are triangule-shaped instead, while babka is a cake filled with cinnamon or chocolate.
Professor Tony Michels, UW-Madison professor of Jewish American history, lists foods such as blintzes, gefilte fish, chopped liver, pickles, whitefish and bagels as important Jewish foods stemming from an Eastern European Jewish tradition.
Even though bagels do not seem to have any cultural background, Michels said they are ""without a doubt, the most widely used Jewish food.""
According to Michels, foods that are often associated with Jewish cuisine, such as hot dogs, pastrami and corned beef, do not necessarily come from Jewish tradition but are more American acquisitions.
Jewish cuisine encompasses a wide range of foods, many of which are familiar to Americans. Culture and integration shape Jewish cuisine just as much as religious tradition. Although Jewish cuisine varies, it maintains traditions and tells stories, according to Steinberger.
""You can tell the story in a lot of different ways and tell it through the food, so that it serves as an easy reminder for people,"" Steinberger said.
