Traditions

Sundown tonight marks the start of Rosh Hashannah, the start of the Jewish New Year. Whether Jewish, Muslim, Buddist, Catholic, or atheist, it doesn't matter to me, as I'm not one to participate in religion for a variety of reasons. As a base, all religions hold to similar beliefs of faith, trust, love and betterment of the individual through betterment of others. What separates most religions are the rituals around holidays, either in religious ceremony or in the traditions of eating specific foods, but even then there are similarities of ritual. Family, friends, food, ceremony.

Because it is the Jewish New Year, and because I'm always curious, I learned a new word today. Knish. It is one of the foods associated with Rosh Hashannah and I'm dying to make some as they sound fabulous. No, I don't want to adopt a religion, but I do want to explore and taste the foods that surround the different holidays and cultures of the world. So if I can I'll be trying my hand at making knishes this weekend.

According to Wikipedia a knish is:

an eastern-European Jewish or Yiddish snack food. It is a dumpling covered with a dough shell that is either baked or fried.

Like many Jewish foods popular in North America, knishes were created by eastern European Jews who wanted to add some variety to their humdrum diets. By wrapping dough around kasha (buckwheat) or potatoes they made something new and interesting out of rather mundane ingredients. All inexpensive items, they were staples of the peasant diets. As is common across the world, these inexpensive items are what became traditional foods full of wonderful memories for future generations.

Shona Tova to all those who celebrate the holiday.

May your best day of last year be the worst of your next.

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