Page:Wood - Foods of the Foreign-Born.djvu/104

88 been cooked with the pot roast. These are usually stewed to a golden brown. Onions are always an important ingredient.

Almond pudding is a favorite, because it requires neither meat nor butter, and can therefore be eaten at either type of meal. It is made of almonds, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon rind, and baked.

The obstacles to the use of meat have developed a taste for fish, as well as for cheese and milk products. Since fish is not a warm-blooded animal, it may be eaten in conjunction with milk and milk products. (This is an added reason for its popularity. The celebration of the Sabbath and the eating of fish have always been associated.) Mrs. Schapiro says that "from no orthodox table is fish entirely absent from the Sabbath meals, however difficult it may be to procure. In inland countries, like Poland, the Jews are limited to fresh-water fish. I have known people who could barely afford bread during the week to pay as much as forty or even fifty cents per pound for their Sabbath fish." Salmon is a favorite kind of fish. This is fried, white stewed, or brown stewed. Smoked salmon, pickled herring, and pickled pickerel are served as appetizers by the Russian Jews. Most characteristic of all fish dishes, perhaps, is the "gefillte fisch," for which carp, whitefish, and pike are most generally used. Part of the flesh of the fish is removed and chopped with onions, bread crumbs, seasonings, and eggs. The mixture is returned to the fish, which is then baked or stewed with more onion and a large amount of pepper at a low temperature for several hours. The long, slow cooking develops the flavor of the fish,, which blends with the other ingredients and forms a most palatable dish. While Jewish fish dishes form excellent