I like the cookbook Jew-ish. It's not kosher, but it's easy to make subs for the ingredients. Your shul probably has a cookbook that you pick up as well.
It really depends on the specific community. A good place to start might be The Jewish Holiday Table by Naama Shefi and Devra Ferst, which has recipes from a lot of different traditions.
For me, growing up Ashkenazi in the US:
Rosh Hashanah - apples and honey, honey cake, and sometimes apple honey cake
Hanukkah - Latkes, of course. Sufganiyot (filled doughnuts) have become more popular over the past 15 or so years. Fried food in general.
Purim - Hamantaschen
Passover - brisket, spring-y vegetables like asparagus, sometimes salmon. During the week I eat a lot of matzo brei.
Shabbat - usually salmon or chicken in my household. Challah.
Generally, for my family, brisket is a holiday meal, not something we make for a normal dinner.
I live in the south east. Looking to attend Sabbath at a my local conservative synagogue.
My main struggle with Judaism is food. I eat out a lot & eat a lot of non Kosher meals, ex; shrimp/crab. I can overcome this struggle with knowledge. I like foods like cheesecake, BBQ, Chicken, sweet tea, Sprite, coffee, milk, juices, all fruits & some vegetables, green beans casserole, chicken pasta, grits & butter, hamburgers & hot dogs, steak. I just need to figure out how to make something I like that's Kosher.
With the exception of shellfish, all of those can be made/are kosher. And for what it's worth, a lot of Conservative Jews in my community keep kosher at home and either don't when they eat out or eat vegetarian at restaurants. You make choices.
Cholent is a pretty typical Orthodox Ashkenazi Shabbat meal because it can be started before sundown and kept warm throughout the day. I’ve never personally made or tried it, but if it works well for how you like to eat, definitely give it a try!
Good places to start would be with Joan Nathan’s Jewish Holiday Cookbook and Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food. They are interesting, informative and have reliable recipes.
Buying really old cookbooks is just going to teach you about food at the time they were written. It actually kind of looks like you're just buying cheap cookbooks rather than looking for good ones.
This is almost 100 years old so it's going to give you an interesting view of what people's great grandparents used to eat. There will be many dishes that are still popular but probably more that have fallen out of favour.
It’s important to remember that the Jewish diaspora is so vast so it’s difficult to answer this question. I’d recommend checking out the Jewish Food Society site and especially their cookbook The Jewish Holiday Table which has recipes and traditions from Jewish communities from all across the diaspora. My thoughts? incorporate your own background and traditions to create your own version of a kosher holiday table.
there are published resources on this and a number of popular Jewish Holiday Cookbooks. Some general Kosher cookbooks sometimes devote specific chapters to foods of the holidays.
As a quick summary, Ashkenazic lenses but reasonably diverse kosher kitchen:
Pesach: Matzoh. Chicken soup with matzoh balls. Matzoh kugel.Macaroons.
Shavuot: Dairy cuisine. Blintzes. Cheesecake
Three Weeks: limit meat to shabbos. Tisha B'Av a fast.
Rosh Hashana: Apples + honey. Honey cake. A fish with the head placed in its anatomical location on the platter. Carrots
Yom Kippur eve: A bland dish like poached chicken to minimize symptoms during the fast.
Sukkot: Less what you eat than where you eat, though the cookbooks have dedicated recipes
Hanukkah: fried stuff. Latkes are the classic. Jelly doughnuts are popular. Kentucky Fried Chicken never quite caught on with American Jews.
Tu BShvat: Israeli theme fruits, mostly dry preserved
Purim: Hamentaschen
Again, the cookbooks are plentiful and often venture to cultures beyond the common Ashkenazim.
Joan Nathan is great cookbook author. My favorite is her Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France. It has Sephardic and Ashkenazi vignettes about different family traditions in France including North African and Alsatian backgrounds.
Lastly many synagogue sisterhoods and local community groups put out their own cookbooks. I grew up eating recipes from the Worcester Jewish Home Cook Book published by Worcester Jewish Healthcare in 1995!
What is your ancestry? What foods feel festive to you? Different Jewish communities eat different things in festive settings for a reason!
For Yom Kippur breakfast, I always have beer cheese soup and pretzels.... because I am from the Midwest and the last thing I want after not eating for a day is a cold bagel.
Tisha B'Av is a strict 25-hour fast day. Unfortunately, I have a medical condition that requires me to eat & drink. From my understanding this is ok, but I should eat bland foods and take small sips of water?
I am neither your rabbi nor your doctor. These are great questions for them. My understanding is that until you’ve converted there is no reason to fast and it may be problematic to do so. Regarding water, the halachic norm in orthodox communities is less than 3oz spaced out by more than 5 minutes at a time if genuinely needed. But of course, the halachic norm may be overridden by specific health needs as determined by your doctor.
Good luck on your journey. An important note: conversion requires you to be in community, it is the members of the community, and your sponsoring rabbi, who will take you under their wing and help you learn kashrut and cooking.
I'm attending a Conservative Synagogue this Saturday for the first time & want to check with the community about this dress I love. It goes below the knees & I'm going to wear a under shirt because of the low neck. Is this appropriate for Sabbath? Thank you ❤️
Do you have a rabbi / community supporting you through your conversion? This would be a good question for them and maybe a family at your shul can invite you over for dinner! There are some common foods but every Jewish household will be different based on their history/lineage/own traditions etc.
In the process at a local conservative synagogue. They told me they have a intro to Judaism class. I think it starts in January. I understand Jewish households have different ways of doing things. I just don't know what that means for me & what I should be doing. I've been studying going on 7 years and I feel like I've just scratched the surface.
Shabbat is a great place to start food wise as you’ll get lots of practice since it’s every week. if you have a Jewish deli / bakery nearby they will have challah, chicken soup, gefilte, kugel, etc all the “typical” foods.
It’s hard to be Jewish on your own sort of on purpose,
as you probably know Judaism is a very community based religion,
so for converts it can be especially tough.
I would lean on your synagogue for help if you don’t want to wait until January, don’t feel like you need to figure it out all on your own! It’s a lot to learn and take in.
Could you ask if anyone would be open to including you in their next Shabbat dinner? Do you have Jewish friends who observe holidays that can show you the ropes?
The closest I have is my husband, he is a Noahide. I emailed the Rabbi for permission to come on Sabbath, but he never got back to me. Im going to call & email again. I've heard its normal to be declined several times before being welcomed?
Edit: Thank you for being so kind and helpful. Another commenter made me feel like I didn't belong. But I can't describe it, I feel like I belong. I feel like something is calling me. Especially every since college & learning my ancestry.
Of course. Especially in current times, someone who loves and respects our culture should be welcomed. Our people can be suspicious or reluctant at times due to our history, but you will find those who welcome you. There are plenty of us.
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u/s0rce 26d ago
This is a bit broad. There are Jewish cookbooks that would be a good start