Next Stop: Vilna

Our next stop is Vilna, which technically doesn’t exist anymore. It goes by Vilnius these days and is the capital of Lithuania.

No, I didn’t recently travel there, though I’d certainly love to –– especially after meeting a distant relative who lives there with her family. Instead, I did a bit of time travel to the Ashkenazi Jewish kitchens of what used to be called Vilna when it was annexed by Poland before World War II.

I spent last weekend working on a story for BBC on the culinary legacy of Fania Lewando’s 1938 Yiddish-language cookbook “The Vilna Vegetarian.” This was a cookbook released at a time when antisemitic laws prohibited the kosher ritual slaughtering of animals, thus essentially rendering those who weren’t already vegetarians de facto vegetarians.

But Lewando had long been a vegetarian and Ashkenazi vegetarianism goes back to Talmudic times. It’s only in recent history that Ashkenazi cuisine was seen as meat-heavy with its briskets, mounds of pastrami, kishke (stuffed intestine), and gefilte fish for a taste of the sea. The story I’m working on shows how contemporary Ashkenazi cooks and cookbook authors are returning to the principles spelled out by Lewando both in her words and in her cooking after her cookbook was republished in English in 2015.

To get a sense of what that kitchen might look like, I decided I should fill my kitchen with her recipes. On Saturday, I made a pickle and potato soup with chunks of celeriac root, carrots, green peas, and of course, chopped potatoes and pickles. I served this to myself alongside a plate of vegetarian gefilte fish using a 100-something-year-old recipe by one of Lewando’s contemporaries. Eve Jochnowitz, the translator of “The Vilna Vegetarian” turned me onto the recipe that uses salsify (a vegetable I literally never heard of before) to mimic the texture of fish.

For Sunday night dinner, I used the rest of my celeriac root, dipped it in flour, egg, and matzo meal to turn it into a schnitzel that surprised even my veggie-loving sensibilities. Topping it with Lewando’s recommended creamed carrots and peas reminded me of something my mother would’ve had on the side of a dinner plate when I was a kid. But I used my schnitzel eating experience in Germany (back when I didn’t second-guess eating meat) to drizzle a little lemon juice on top. I’ll be going back to this recipe.

Last but not least, I started the week with a Monday morning leek frittata. This time, I used a recipe from “The Gefilte Manifesto” that adapted Lewando’s original recipe. I can still taste the dill as I write this. (I wrote this on Monday a few hours after breakfast, just so you don’t think it’s Thursday and I’m still tasting dill in my mouth.)

I used the experience to open my article for BBC. It remains to be seen how much of my trip through time my editor will leave in the final piece. Regardless, I’m glad I took the time to experiment with these dishes and I look forward to making greater efforts to infuse my cooking and meal planning with Lewando’s principles, such as using all of your scraps, being resourceful, and working with high-quality, regional and seasonal produce. This is, after all, closer to how we’ve all eaten throughout history.

Words

Got a few stories publishing soon! I meant to publish a recipe I put together for Pearl Barley Risotto with Hokkaido pumpkin and mandarin slices but just ran out of time. Cut me a break, will ya? God knows I won’t. (Healthy, right?)

Watch & Listen

I’m not going to spend much time in this newsletter sharing what I’ve been reading, watching, or listening to. It seems like a newsletter cliché at this point, and I’m not so sure you actually give two turds about what I’m watching, listening to, or reading.

That said, if I feel compelled to do so, I’ll still throw out a recommendation, clichéd or not. Last weekend, I finished Mel Brook’s autobiographical audiobook “All About Me.” I can happily recommend that, but I’m more so recommending that you go back and watch his movies for the unadulterated silly brilliance that they are. The world needs more silliness and there’s a gold mine of it in Brooks’ work.

One of my favorite moments during my last trip back to the States was listening with my father to a vinyl of “The 2,000 Year Old Man” with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. (It’s “The British are coming,” not “The Yiddish are coming!”) Since then I’ve gone back and re-watched a childhood favorite, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, and followed it up with The Producers and Blazing Saddles. No matter your mood, you’ll feel a lift from the sheer, unapologetic stupidity that’s rampant in these films.

Just be careful. Some of his songs can really get in your head and you’ll find yourself humming “Springtime For Hitler” on a walk around Berlin. I can’t wait until we head to Spain later this month and I inevitably belt out, “The Inquisition’s here and it’s here to staaaaaay!”

–– Joe