Original Story Published by: Emily Paster for Aish, www.aish.com
Photo Source: Courtesy of Aish
The cuisine of South Africa’s Jewish community, as one might expect, is a unique mixture of traditional Ashkenazi foods and South Africa’s own indigenous ingredients, flavors and traditions. In many ways, the holiday and festival foods that South African Jews eat are very similar to the foods that Jews eat in North America - with a special emphasis on the Lithuanian version of Ashkenazi favorites. Sharon Lurie, a kosher food expert and cookbook author in Johannesburg, who writes cookbooks and hosts a cooking show in South Africa, explains:
Being of Lithuanian and Ashkenazi descent myself, my go-to foods on [holidays] are the traditional foods…that I grew up knowing such as chicken soup and kneidelach…, gefilte fish, fried fish, chrain, different types of herring, pickled cucumbers, chopped liver…and kugels.
Jewish stand-up comedian and caterer Tracy Ann Klass, echoes Lurie’s thoughts: “Yes, we do have the same dishes - tzimmes, potato kugel, the herrings, chopped liver, gefilte fish.” Dean Jankelowitz notes that there are a lot of Jewish delis in South Africa - “not quite Russ & Daughters but along those lines” - and that women like his grandmother Freda, “prepared the same Ashkenazi foods time and time again.”
Fish in general is a large part of South African Jewish cuisine. “We have such beautiful fish,” explains Klass. “so there are a few dishes that you don’t seem to find anywhere else or if you do, they are just not the same.” South African Jews are known to eat a lot of chopped herring - preferably on top of a thin, slightly sweet biscuit or cracker called kichel. Jankelowitz notes that this combination “chopped herring with a sweet cracker and beet horseradish on top,” is one of the few things that is very popular among South African Jews that he has not seen anywhere else. Get my recipe for South African Kichel here.
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