Feeding the Hungry Ghost (13 page)

KEEPING
the
FAITH

I used to think I was rejecting my faith. Mostly, I was rejecting gefilte fish. Although not part of the true Passover plate, it has somehow become a holiday tradition in many families, including, alas, mine. You could call gefilte fish by its French name,
quenelles de poisson,
but in any language, it is minced fish shaped into dumplings and poached. I call it a fish ball, and it still makes me panicky. It is pale and lifeless, where I crave color; mushy, where I crave crunch. Wet, with disturbing gelatinous bits adhering to it, it slides all over the plate despite the sprigs of parsley or dill often used to garnish and brighten it up and perhaps serve as an anchor. I did not become vegan in order to get a gefilte fish reprieve. But it’s a nice side benefit.

And yet gefilte fish is, for some, the taste of home. I understand that primal pull. Fine, you can have mine. You can have all the Ashkenazic food of Central Europe, the food of my childhood
holidays. The brisket, the blintzes, the boiled, the bland. It’s a cuisine that makes more sense in Minsk than Miami.

The soft, bright, cleansing mint, the tart spritz of lemon, and the oily, inky, salty kalamatas in the Judeo-Christian Biblical Barley and Herb Salad are the flavors of Sephardic cuisine, the cuisine of the Jews of Morocco, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. Same religion, different tribe. Sephardic cuisine also makes liberal use of cumin, cinnamon, saffron, dates, lentils, eggplant, and tomatoes. These are the flavors I understand and hunger for, hungered for before I even knew what they were. I was in the angstiest throes of my teens (my mother can tell you stories) when I learned you could cook this way and still be Jewish. Suddenly, I belonged somewhere. Suddenly, everything blossomed and made sense.

Okay, not everything. But I’m still drawn to the food of these countries. I must have the warming scent of cumin, the sweetness of cinnamon, in my kitchen; I must have these flavors in my mouth. Making recipes with origins dating back centuries, cooking food our forebears made in their kitchens, makes my heart replete.

I feel a kinship to those who came before, feel their presence with me as I make the food they made. They settle in, draping the folds of their robes around them just so, and watch me prepare the barley, chop the mint.

Because it is my fantasy, they are wise and warm and kind, and not hampered by the fact we don’t speak the same language. They offer little suggestions. Add more lemon juice. Chop the mint a little finer. And because human nature has not changed so much over the centuries, they throw in a little critique or two. Who taught you to hold a knife that way? And why are your
fingernails blue? If they’re a little weirded out by my kitchen gear and getup, they recognize the barley salad, welcome and eat it.

I may be a little dodgy on the formal religion, but I kind of get into biblical, into old-school, into authenticity. This is, perhaps, what prompted me to make homemade matzo at Passover.

Matzo, or unleavened bread, is a thin, dry cracker sometimes known as the bread of faith, so you can understand how I’d be all over it. More often, though, it is called the bread of affliction. Call it what you will, there’s only so much you can do with it. But what if you bake your own? It’s a vital connection to our Jewish ancestors, has to taste better than your basic boxed matzo, and made with only flour, water, salt, and sometimes a little oil, it’s pretty straightforward. It couldn’t be too time-consuming — the Jews fleeing Egypt thousands of years ago had to bake the original matzo double-quick before blowing town. How hard could it be?

Famous last words.

To start with, there’s the eighteen-minute rule. According to rabbinical law, there can be no chance for the dough to ferment and rise during baking. Therefore, from the time the flour hits the water to the time you take it out of the oven, making matzo must take less time than it takes to walk a Roman mile — clocked at eighteen minutes.

I measured out my flour and readied my rolling pin. At the bell, I set off in a matzo-making mania and wound up with a crispy, toasty matzo — flat and oblong and sometimes a little oddly shaped. It did not taste like cardboard. Olive oil made it delicious, and with a food processor (so much for old-school), it’s doable in seventeen and a half minutes. Eureka, it’s possible.

It is not, however, Passover worthy. My kitchen is clean, but it is not kosherized, which involves steaming or superheating all surfaces and utensils and having a rabbi bless the kitchen. I hadn’t
done any of that. I had a feeling I’d innocently committed a few other matzo misdemeanors, as well.

For instance, there’s the flour issue. I used unbleached, allpurpose wheat flour. Wheat, along with barley, spelt, rye, and oats, has a gift for leavening. This quality makes it desirable for baking the rest of the year but is off-limits at Passover.

Millet, though, isn’t on the ix-nay list. Most people know it only as birdseed, but this whole grain was big in Egypt centuries ago; and some food historians believe ground millet was used for that first-ever batch of matzo. Maybe I’d get by with a technicality if I made matzo with millet flour.

It mixed into a creamy batter and baked into a beautiful golden cracker, all within the limited time. But to taste, it was truly the bread of affliction. Millet matzo is brittle and sour.

Quinoa flour matzo? Doesn’t seem like anything the ancient Jews had in mind (or at hand). I asked around and was met with your classic Yiddish shrug. Finally, I turned to a rabbi. Not just any rabbi, a Lubavitcher rabbi, as old-school as you can get.

“So, rabbi,” I said. “How do I do it?”

The rabbi stroked his beard and sighed. “This I cannot advise.”

It’s not a flour issue. After all, commercial Passover matzo is made with wheat flour. What you need is a high-speed matzo-baking team and a commercial oven. At home by yourself, you can’t keep turning out matzo fast enough or keep your oven hot enough.

“Make your own matzo? What do you need with that headache?” the rabbi said.

To re-create the ancestral experience, I explained. Tradition, connection, authenticity, faith, all that stuff.

“Keep the faith, buy the matzo,” the rabbi said.

Did I listen?

DIY Matzo

I have experimented with many different kinds of flour (and abandoned millet flour altogether), and my personal best matzo uses both allpurpose and whole wheat flour. This combination wins for the dough that’s easiest to handle and the matzo most worth eating. The recipe has its origins with the Jews who fled Egypt, but also with the estimable
How to Cook Everything
author, Mark Bittman, who makes a stylish DIY matzo of his own.

Matzo keeps in an airtight container for a day or two but tastes best right out of the oven.

Makes 1 dozen matzo, rustic and biblical in appearance and not at all bad to eat

¾ cup water

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

Sea salt for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 500°F. Set out two baking sheets and have them ready for quick rollout-to-oven turnaround.

In a small bowl, whisk together the water and oil until it emulsifies, about 1 minute. Put the flours into a blender or food processor. With the motor running, slowly pour in the water-and-oil mixture. Blitz the mixture until a ball of smooth, not sticky, dough forms, about 1 minute.

Divide the dough into a dozen pieces. On a floured surface, roll out one piece of dough into a thin-as-possible round (or often in my case, a lopsided ovoid) about 8 inches across. Do not even think of
rolling out more than one piece of matzo dough at a time — it won’t work. Place gently on an ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Prick the dough all over with a fork to prevent bubbles — a sign of leavening.

Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.

Bake the matzo for 4 minutes on one side, or until golden brown and pebbled with brown, then gently flip, baking 4 minutes more.

Set on racks to cool.

MY HEART IS FUL

Call it matzo, call it flatbread; it has applications well beyond Passover. My answer to the Arab-Israeli conflict is to use the matzo as an edible scoop for ful.

Someone needs to come up with a better name. But ful, or fava beans, the national dish of Egypt, dates back centuries, and you don’t want to mess with anyone’s beloved tradition. Even when it has an off-putting name that is sometimes, lamentably, spelled f-o-u-l.

Spell it any way you like, ful is not upmarket. It’s “everyman’s breakfast, the shopkeeper’s lunch, and the poor man’s dinner,” as the Arabic saying goes, and a bowl of ful is a welcome sight at any time of the day.

This is not to say it is pretty. Alas, it is a bowl of brown, although sometimes you can add a few quick-cooking red lentils for color. But the beans are slow cooked until they yield, turning them kind and velvety in the mouth. Ful is toasty, nutty, primal, reminding us yet again that gentle heat and time work in concert to transform the humblest food into something to stir the soul.

Sometimes the beans are mashed until fluffy, then pretty much left alone, to enjoy as a dip or as one of the cooked vegetable salads of the Middle East. Sometimes ful is cooked with tomatoes, lemon, garlic, and cumin, the wonderful warming spice of Egypt, in which case it is called ful mudammas.

You can top ful with any number of garnishes, from tahini to chopped tomatoes and onions, or just with a drizzle of gutsy, green olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, but it is not to be tarted up. You’d be missing the point. This is the people’s food. Egypt’s national dish is not lamb, but a legume. A pot of ful feeds many and supplies a lot of protein and fiber for just a few piastres.

If there is anything unsatisfying about favas, it is this — the beans have a tough outer carapace that needs to be peeled before eating. To make matters worse, some people have an extreme allergic reaction to fava skins, called favism, not to be confused with fauvism, the French avant-garde art movement of a century ago. Very few people have been allergic to Matisse.

Available in Middle Eastern markets and many natural food stores, dried favas come in small, medium, and large, but the Egyptians wisely use only the small, tender ones for making ful. I have gone with a larger, lima-size fava, thinking fewer beans per pound would save me peeling time. I was sorely misguided. The bigger the bean, the tougher the skin and the greater the peeling effort. Small favas, which the Egyptians call ful hammam, or bath beans, are not only quicker to cook but easier to peel.

Whatever size favas you use, your best bet is to parboil the beans, peel them, then finish cooking until the beans are tender. I am sorry to tell you this can take as long as twelve hours. The final cooking, however, takes only minutes.

Ful is also sold in cans, if you want to spare yourself some time and labor, but you’ll be cheating yourself out of the full ful
experience. Peeling a pound of favas is a worthy endeavor, especially if you enlist others to help you.

In fact, peeling favas together in the same room is the ideal way to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, marital conflict, any conflict. It keeps everyone’s hands busy but leaves you free to converse, argue, understand, and ultimately feed each other. You may get frustrated with the process, but if you want to eat, you have to peel. Should diplomatic channels fail, the worst thing you can do is pelt each other with cooked beans.

I would much rather send generals into the kitchen to peel favas than send them into battle with guns, bombs, and brave, selfless troops. My new slogan — make ful, not war.

Peeling, when it comes to favas, is all about reaching the point of tenderness. Peeling, in all cases, is a revelation of self. And then we can sit down and eat together.

Ful Mudammas

Traditionally, each simple bowl of beans is topped with a goodly drizzle of olive oil, but to eat like an Egyptian, allow each person to salt his own ful.

This recipe doubles easily and can be served with homemade matzo or any flatbread that pleases you.

Serves 4

3 cups small fava beans cooked as per master plan (see
page 16
), or for an easier way, two 15-ounce cans ful, rinsed

4 cloves garlic, chopped

½ cup red lentils

1½ cups Stone Soup (see
page 84
) or other vegetable broth, water, or reserved fava bean cooking liquid

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 tomatoes, chopped, or one 15-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained

Juice of 1 lemon

½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Olive oil for garnish (optional)

Tahini for garnish (optional)

Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley and chopped tomatoes for garnish (optional)

Chopped scallions for garnish (optional)