Five Borough Food Talks: Jewish Food

Stepping into the Symphony Space auditorium the first thing I noticed was the distinction between those already seated and our class standing up. Most of the audience was decades older than us. This personally set the tone for me for the rest of evening. It’s not to say that I felt like an outsider listening to the panel discuss Jewish food in the context of New York culture, but it made me more attentive. I was surprised at how much they deliberated on the significance of Jewish staples such as herring and gefilte fish. Considering that there wasn’t much attention to the concept of Kosher food and laws—but that is probably also due to the assumption that most of the audience was a part of Jewish culture, or at least, understood it more than I did—I left with a some confusion, and honestly a little disappointment. I felt a little excluded because of a lack of knowledge of the subject matter. However, I did appreciate the historical context the panelists, and especially the host, set in terms of how Jewish food evolved with the migration of people and development of the culture in modern times.

The class discussion we had last Thursday helped to fill in some of my questions, and allowed me to understand how much some of my other classmates, who are Jewish, appreciated the talk. It was interesting what people thought about the changes in Kosher laws and how they followed them according their own familial customs.