Abusch-magder 2002 Eating Out Food & Boundaries of Jewish Community

Eating "Out": Food and the Boundaries of Jewish Community and Home in Germany and theUnited StatesAuthor(s): Ruth Abusch-MagderSource: Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, No. 5, Feeding anIdentity: Gender, Food, and Survival (Fall, 5763/2002), pp. 53-82Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40326553 .Accessed: 23/02/2015 23:39

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EATING "OUTr/: FOOD AND THE BOUNDARIES OF JEWISH

COMMUNITY AND HOME IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES

Ruth Abusch-Magder

During her childhood, at the turn of the twentieth century, Lillian Stern Bader spent summers in Teplitz, Bohemia. These escapes from the financial strains of life in Vienna were highlighted by extravagances such as her favorite pastry. It "came in the shape of a boat, heaped with beaten egg whites, that acquired a lovely pink shade from the strawberries buried in it."1 Biting into this fancy confection, she escaped, even if only momen- tarily, from her complicated everyday life. Today it is hard to imagine life without fast-food, take-out, or frozen

dinners. Prepared foods are so common that we hardly notice them when they arrive at our kitchen tables. Nor do we always eat at home. We eat at work, in the car, and at school. We eat in restaurants, cafeterias, or out of a bag. But this was not the case in the nineteenth century and even in the early years of the twentieth, when most food preparation was the labor- intensive result of work done in the family kitchen, and most meals were eaten at the family table. For Lillian Stern Bader, who lived in that era and whose main food associations were with the home, the foods that were connected to the world beyond the home were exceptional and took on significance far beyond the nutrition they provided. This paper looks specifically at those moments and ways in which

nineteenth-century German-speaking Jews came into contact with what I call "outside food." From the middle of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of World War I, German Jews increasingly attempted to inte- grate into secular middle-class society. In addition to making changes in

Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women 's Studies and Gender Issues, no. 5. 2002 53


Ruth Abusch-Magder

professional and educational arenas, the process involved continual re- evaluation of the possibilities and limitations of Jewish home life.2 As this paper will show, encounters with outside food demanded that Jews look beyond the familiar and forced them to reconsider their definitions of home and community. Throughout this work, I define outside food broadly. I use the term to

refer to foods whose primary place of preparation and/or consumption was not the home. I also apply it to foods that were not historically part of the German Jewish culinary tradition. As will be discussed later, these historical exclusions were often connected with the observance of kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws. However, kashrut was by no means the only reason why certain food items remained outside Jewish culinary norms. Using an elastic definition of outside food, I am best able to capture a variety of connected relationships to food that conveyed multiple ways in which Jews understood the worlds inside and outside the home. Bringing outside foods into the home meant bringing part of the outside world into the home, while eating away from home meant abandoning one of the home's central functions. Whether people received gifts of food, ate when they traveled, or availed themselves of new culinary options, reactions to outside foods reveal a great deal about the boundaries of home life and the relationship to the worlds beyond the home. The importance of outside food as a means through which Jews - in

particular Jewish women, whose responsibilities as providers of food gave them a critical role in shaping Jewish experience of the modern world - negotiated the promise and perils of this emerging middle-class life can be seen in the sources that capture elements of nineteenth-century home life. Recollections of food feature prominently in the memoirs of German Jewish life in this period, regardless of the authors' gender. Memories connected to food captured the plurality of connections and disjunctures experienced by individuals. An analysis of the events recounted, as well as the language used to tell these stories, shows us the complex ways in which Jews balanced personal goals, religious considerations, practical con- straints, family expectations, and broad communal norms in the process of creating middle-class life. As a counterpoint to this story of food's place in the making of the

Jewish middle class in the German states, this paper concludes with a brief look at one variation on this theme, the experiences with outside food of

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Eating "Out": Food and the Boundaries of Jewish Community

German-speaking Jews in the United States.3 The example of the United States expands our understanding of how food was used both to establish and to break connections. As Jews emigrated from Europe, all the food they encountered in the New World was by definition outside their experience.4 An analysis of their interaction with outside foods and the ways in which American German Jews both embraced the new recipes and held on to old favorites broadens our conception of the German Jewish community. Considering the implications of migration sharpens our appreciation for the roles food played in connecting communities. The comparison also allows us to consider the ways in which specific social and cultural considerations shape boundaries and reminds us that German Jewish identity was not the inevitable outcome of acculturation, but was historically and contextually specific.

Germany

Across Western Europe and in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, home life became an important feature of the newly emerging middle class.5 As men took on professional and white-collar jobs associated with industrial life, middle-class women focused attention on the home as a showplace of class status. For German Jews who envisioned middle-class standing as part of their expanding economic and political rights, everything from cleaning to childrearing, from the books on the shelf to the cake served to guests helped shape the image and content of Jewish middle-class life.6 But the transition from a traditional Jewish lifestyle, set within a traditional Jewish community, to an acculturated German middle-class lifestyle, set within broader societal norms, was not straightforward. Introducing elements of Germanness into the Jewish home did not mean forsaking all that was Jewish, nor did leaving the boundaries of the Jewish home mean abandoning all elements of tradition. But as people moved back and forth between communities, bringing elements of each experience with them, the boundaries and definitions of both home and community underwent change. Food was essential for building ties between neighbors. Memoirist

Samuel Spiro noted about life in the small German town of Schenk- lengsfeld in the 1880s and '90s that "the [Jewish] community was one large

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Ruth Abusch-Magder

family." The proof, in his mind, was shiva, the seven days of mourning, when "every woman who visited [the bereaved] brought cake or poultry to the mourner's home."7 Sharing as a means of community-building occurred naturally within the traditional Jewish world. The work of cooking and eating was essential to communal ties. Women expressed their concern and care for grieving families by giving gifts of food. Accepting food made outside of one's own home acknowledged these good intentions and signaled a trust in the competence and kashrut of the homes that produced these dishes. The removal of boundaries between outside food and inside food helped forge communal bonds. Jewish homes existed, however, not only within the context of the Jewish

community, but also within the broader German setting. Decisions about sharing food with non-Jews were constantly negotiated in both practice and breach. For Jews, there were no obvious choices. Although the laws of kashrut function, at least in part, as a means of separating Jews from the non-Jewish society around them,8 by no means did all Jews adhere to these dietary laws. And regardless of personal observance, when decisions about sharing or accepting food prepared by non-Jews were made, kashrut was not necessarily the primary consideration. The example of food is a reminder that families weighed multiple considerations in defining their approaches to both observance and community.9 Memoirists also provide evidence that venturing out of the home or the framework of the Jewish dietary laws did not necessarily mean that one had abandoned all respect for religious life and custom. In large part, the degree to which individual families felt themselves

connected to others on their street or in their neighborhood can be seen in the way foods passed in and out of the doors of their homes. In certain circumstances, foods that were not exclusively prepared inside the home might not even come under the category of outside food. Observant Ger- man Jews, who did not prepare food on the Sabbath, relied on bakers' ovens to keep their pre-prepared Saturday meal warm. In times before easy refrigeration, this practice also assured a fresh, bacteria-free meal. Special dishes such as shalet, a type of slow-cooking dish that might be made either of beef, beans, and potatoes or of chicken and rice, would be delivered in cookware to the bakery on Friday afternoon before the Sabbath. The baker's oven burned low overnight and slow-cooked the food. On Satur- day morning, after the conclusion of prayers, each family would send a

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representative to the bakery to retrieve its fragrant, cooked meal. The limitations of technology, combined with strictures against preparing food or stoking a fire on the Sabbath, made this procedure necessary for those who desired a warm midday meal. This practice was common in the 1850s and '60s, and it occurred as late as the turn of the century.10 However, as home ovens became more advanced and could be left burning for long periods, and as adherence to Jewish law slackened, this practice fell by the wayside. This complex procedure of bringing one's own shalet to the baker's oven

seemed only natural to the women who organized and participated in it. The fact that foodstuff placed in one of the family's own containers left the house to sit with the dishes of other community members in a public space posed no problems. Only part of the preparation of the dish was done at home, while the cooking, technically, was done entirely outside. The baker's oven was transformed, in essence, into an extension of the home for the night. Within tight-knit communities that shared common religious values, the boundary between inside and outside was fluid. The lines demarcating private homes could also blur on other occasions,

such as circumcisions or weddings. When the celebration of such an event took place at home, as was common in both the United States and Germany into the twentieth century, it could not be assumed that the hosting family owned enough furniture or utensils to serve all those invited. Neighbors would be relied upon to lend items to the hosting family before the festivities.11 As these food-related items moved through space, distinctions based on ownership were temporarily suspended and the walls of the home extended. When such sharing did not occur, this could be interpreted as a sign of

mistrust. Ester [Hildesheimer] Calvary, the daughter of Rabbi Esriel Hil- desheimer, was born in 1855. She wrote of her hometown, "In Eisenstadt, people were foresightful enough to supply the bridal parents with cutlery and napkins." When she attended a wedding in Mattersdorf, however, place settings were supplied only to out-of-town guests. After the break between the ceremony and the festive meal, it was customary in the Jewish communities for the shames, a synagogue functionary, to go crying through the streets to invite neighbors back for the celebration. In Mattersdorf, the shames added an unusual additional request: "Bring knife, fork, and plate."12 Trying to understand this odd practice, Calvary reasoned that

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Ruth Abusch-Magder

perhaps there had been bad experiences in the past of cutlery being lent and not returned. To her mind this seemed only logical, as "the residents of Mattersdorf were called cheats throughout the entire district."13 When trust was lacking, the boundaries of the individual homes were more sharply defined. Concerns about sharing with neighbors were not confined to relations

between Jews. When the intercourse between Jews and non-Jews involved food, it represented the variety of ways these two distinct but intertwined communities related to one another. Clara Geissmar's memoir of growing up in the town of Eppingen in the 1850s includes a telling vignette about the relationship between Jews and non-Jews and their food. The family was very observant, and her mother, who would not consider cooking on the Sabbath, was reduced to drinking rewarmed coffee until the end of the holy day. In the mother's mind, this was an intolerable situation. For- tunately, a non-Jewish friend and former schoolmate, Frau Schmidt, lived close by, and "every Saturday, my mother regularly had herself invited for afternoon coffee there." In the calm course of everyday life, in which Jew and non-Jew coexisted easily, the opportunity to enter a non-Jewish home and share food was welcome. This situation suited everyone until Clara's mother read of an outbreak

of antisemitic rioting. Although the violence did not affect life in Ep- pingen, it scared her. Her discomfort increased when a rock was thrown through the family window. Now unsure of the attitudes of the greater non- Jewish society, Clara's mother retreated back to the family home and desisted from her regular visits with Frau Schmidt. Though the lure of coffee was strong, the non-Jewish home that produced it was now suspect. The trust that the Schmidt home would be the same as her own was gone, and with it the trust in the food it produced. Concerned about the friendship, Herr Bailiff Schmidt intervened. He remonstrated with Clara's mother, reminding her of the history of social intimacy between the two women. By stressing the shared rationality of the Schmidt household and that of Clara's mother's home, he emphasized the two families' com- monalties. Put this way, the distinctions between the two homes again disappeared, the separation between outside and inside blurred, and the coffee visits were reinstated.14 This story reveals not only the strength of the links between sharing food

and creating community but also the important role women played in

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maintaining them. As former schoolmates, the mother and her friend may have shared a love of poetry reading or of music. Yet it was the coffee that became both the focus of their bond and the location of tension. Many interactions between Jews and non-Jews took place as a result of business relationships, and they were more likely to occur between men. Here, however, we see how food, for which women had the primary responsibility and in which they therefore had particular interest, could also serve as the means for intercommunal and interreligious relationships. As this story passed from mother to daughter, the lessons learned in the

parlor, over coffee, resonated across generation lines. Geissmar reckons that this story took place during the Hep Hep riots of 1819 - that is, a full twenty-five years before her own birth. Clearly, it must have been repeated frequently enough for the daughter to have learned it in detail. With its stress on the common values shared by Jews and non-Jews and the importance of such values as a basis for friendship, the story was still meaningful for the adult Clara over half a century after it occurred. Fol- lowing her marriage, Geissmar went to live in Konstanz, where she and her husband were the only Jews. As such, she socialized with non-Jews,15 and she must have shared many a cup of coffee with non-Jewish female friends. Her mother's story modeled the means by which women could establish bonds across denominational lines as well as the appropriateness of doing so. Perhaps for this reason, it withstood the test of time and was worth recording in her memoir. If Clara Geissmar's mother made a logical leap in assuming a connection

between food and antisemitism, there were other cases where the two were clearly and directly linked. Describing life in a small Hungarian village near the border with Austria, Adolf (Aaron) Hoenig used food to depict a community of Jews and peasants living uneasily together. As the winter of 1850 progressed, Jews and non-Jews slaughtered animals and prepared meats for the months ahead. Though participating in the same activity, the two groups proceeded separately, almost adversarially, each preparing their own unique provisions. The Christian pigs, unlike the Jewish geese,

refused to die peacefully ... the whole village was filled with their noisy protestations. The Jews especially felt quite annoyed by this. ... The general curing and preparing of fat, which now took place, was another trial for Jews, this time however, for the smell of their organs.16

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Ruth Abusch-Magder

At once unkosher by Jewish legal standards and a basic staple of the gentile diet, the pig was a symbol of the irreconcilable differences between the two groups. Imbued with meaning, pork could be wielded as a weapon. One day

Heonig's aunt sent him on an errand that took him through the yard they shared with non-Jewish neighbors. Peter, the son, was making pork sausage. Offended by the smell, Hoenig wrote, "[I] felt obliged to cover my nose with my hand when passing there, so as not to inhale the odor of the pig."17 Equally affronted by this obvious denigration of their food, Peter and his friends took revenge on Aaron. They caught him and, holding him down, stuffed his mouth full of meat. Forced to choose between choking and committing a terrible transgression of Jewish law by swallowing the forbidden food, Aaron chose the latter. After the ordeal, he was convinced that God would punish him with death. In this case, the outside food was no mere symbol of danger but the very real means by which violence was enacted upon a Jew and his central beliefs.18 As Hoenig told it, the episode did not end there, and it is in the

community's extreme reaction that we see the clear connection between outside food and the boundaries of home. The boy tried to hide the "day's sad adventure" from Aunt Rachel, with whom he lived at the time. He was able to do so as long as they remained inside their home. When they ventured out to go shopping, however, a crowd of non-Jews, adults as well as children, went out of their way to taunt him and inform her of his transgression.19 Seeking relief from his guilt and a means of doing penance, the boy informed his teacher, Reb Vigdor, of the "crime." Told he was a Schlemiel, a, poor fool, for having allowed this to happen, young Hoenig replied, "if we would live on Jews' Street, things such as this would not be happening to me either. I am no Schlemiel just because we don't live there."20 In his mind, the physical location of the family home, a rented space in the dwelling of a non-Jewish farmer, was to blame. Given the hostility of both the original assault and the mob scene, his assessment seems reasonable. The only way to avoid contact with outside food was to extend the space of the home, so that the outside world, its foods, and its dangers could be avoided entirely. In the days that followed, the "crime" became common knowledge in the

entire community. The reaction, as he reported it, was excessive. "My classmates at the Cheder [Jewish school] kept away from me. Women and

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children in the streets pointed their fingers at me."21 When his Uncle Itzig, a traveling salesman, came home for the Sabbath, other Jews told him that Hoenig would "bring sin over his house and over the whole community." By Sunday morning, it was decided that the boy would no longer be allowed to attend school and that by the end of the week he would have to leave the home of his aunt and uncle. This punishment seems extreme. Even if we take into account that

young Hoenig, by his own telling, was a troublemaker, so that this episode might have been the final straw in a series of difficulties involving the boy, the exile reveals the degree to which outside food was truly seen as outside. The lines are clearly drawn between what is inside the home - both the physical space and the community - and what is outside. By ingesting this particular outside food, even unintentionally, Hoenig placed himself outside the community. So powerful was the outside food and the danger it posed to the stability of the home that in order to save it he had to be driven not only from the community, but also from the individual home. Where antisemitism played a role in the relations between Jews and non-

Jews, it is not surprising that the boundaries between Jewish and non- Jewish homes might be strictly observed and food not readily shared, especially if sharing it entailed leaving the safety of the Jewish home and entering the unreliable realm of the non-Jewish home. Hesitations about sharing food with non-Jews, however, were not always based on concerns for physical safety. German Jews sometimes felt socially superior to their non-Jewish neighbors.22 In Eduard Silbermann's family there was a general rule that they would eat gifts of food only if they came from a Jewish kitchen, not a Christian one. They even had a saying:

Wenn eine heisst: "Bele" Qudischer Frauenname) darf ich essen aus ihrem "Kele" [sic] (Gert) und "contraris" - bei Christen darf man nicht essen. If she be called Bele (a Jewish woman's name) I may eat from her ladle, but otherwise, if she is Christian, one may not eat [from her ladle] (my translation, R. A.-M.) 2S

In the 1850s and '60s, the family regularly received gifts of doughnuts from their Christian neighbors on Kirchweih day, Church consecration day, not an uncommon practice. At first, the Silbermanns held by their maxim strictly and would not eat these edible gifts.

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As the years passed, however, Eduard's mother reassessed the situation. Upon further consideration, the homes of the non-Jewish neighbors were deemed reinlich, and as a result the Silbermanns could eat from their kitchens. Unfortunately, Silbermann does not explain how his mother came to this conclusion, nor precisely what she meant. One possible reading relies on one of the Yiddish meanings of reinlich, "pure." Among the many connotations of the word "pure" are those which imply holiness or sanctity, states associated with kashrut, for kosher foodstuffs are considered to uphold standards of holiness. Perhaps Mrs. Silbermann found the circumstances of her neighbors' kitchens to be pure enough to be considered kosher on some level, and so eating food produced there no longer challenged her standards of observance. While we can never know with complete certainty that Eduard Sil-

bermann did not intend reinlich in this way, upon close consideration it seems unlikely. The cuisine of non-Jewish Germans relied heavily on pork products, which were cheap and plentiful. The chances that the Silber- manns' neighbors abstained from pork are remote indeed. Even if they did not eat pork, other barriers would remain: beef and chicken, while not inherently unkosher, had to be handled according to Jewish law, and milk and meat had to be kept from each other. These are not practices in which non-Jewish families would have engaged. And the possibility that the home was vegetarian in any way, let alone to such a degree as not to contradict kashrut, is remote. Whatever the diet of these non-Jewish neighbors, it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Silbermann found them pure enough to be kosher.

"Pure," however, also has connotations of propriety and cleanliness, qualities of great importance to German housewives. Silbermann wrote his memoir in German in 1916, thus more likely intending reinlich not in any Yiddish sense but rather in its common German senses of "clean" or "tidy." This reading of the text, while much more probable linguistically, seems counterintuitive from the perspective of traditional Judaism. For if, upon reconsideration, Mrs. Silbermann judged her non-Jewish neighbors' kitchens to be clean and the food they produced fit for consumption, the implication is that, at least in this matter, cleanliness trumped kashrut. Startling as it may seem in the context of a traditional Jewish family, this example reminds us that Jews made decisions along several competing axes. At the start of the story, Jewish homes were all assumed to be similar

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to those of the Silbermanns. Their food, therefore, was safe; it was not really outside food. On the other hand, non-Jews as a whole were "other": their kitchens and their food were suspect, outside acceptable bounds. Demonstrating the cleanliness of a given Christian kitchen, however, helped establish common ground. Though other barriers, such as kashrut, might continue to exist, the value placed on cleanliness removed a major barrier that distinguished between the two types of homes, and the differences between inside and outside food disappeared. In later sources, concerns about sharing food with non-Jews disappear as

a theme for discussion in the memoirs of Jews from German-speaking lands. And while the historian can address issues raised explicitly in primary texts, it is much more difficult to assess absences with any certainty. By no means did antisemitism decline with time. Indeed, following the revolution of 1848, its modern form emerged in Germany and gained unprecedented strength.24 Nonetheless, as we have already discussed, antisemitism was by no means the only factor that played a role in determining whether or not Jews worried about partaking of outside food; the ability to share food relies on envisioning a shared community. A clue to understanding the lack of anxiety about outside food in evidence by the turn of the century can be found in a few vignettes from that time which portray food-sharing in a positive light. These suggest that despite tensions between the communities, there was still room for companionship between Jews and non-Jews.

Consider Eric Fischer's story of a plum harvest on the outskirts of Vienna at the turn of the century:

At one time in the fall, when she [the family housekeeper] had her day off, she proposed to take Fini and me along for a visit to her sister in a not very far-off village. ... Her sister was the cook of a parson. ... At noontime everybody gathered around a big table. The priest blessed the food, then turned to me, "You are, probably, accustomed to a different kind of blessing. So go ahead and pray." I did not know a blessing before the meals. However, I am still surprised at my presence of mind. I rose and said the sh'mah25 in the parsonage.26

Though the shared meal, for Fischer, is merely a background to his absurd response, this story tells us a great deal about community. Here the bonds

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between Jews and non-Jew are multiple. Like many other Jewish families, the Fischers brought a non-Jew into their home. By virtue of her position as housekeeper, this woman was a part of the intimacies of Jewish family life. In this case, it was a two-sided relationship: the woman gladly invited the children into her family's private life. The boundaries between non-Jew and Jew, servant and employer, were further not enforced as all members of the party were invited to the table of the sister's employer. Again, the women were responsible for forging and maintaining these connections. Without these female-based ties, it is hard to imagine this manifestation of intimacy between Jews and non-Jews. The most notable moment took place once they were all gathered and

the food set before them. The priest's request for a Jewish blessing suggests a level of mutual respect that would have made such sharing possible. In such an atmosphere of trust, the boundaries between Jewish and non- Jewish homes, like that between baker's oven and personal oven, might go unnoticed and therefore unrecorded. In his memoir of his early years in the town of Werne, Westphalia, in the

early decades of the twentieth century, Joseph Heiman clearly sees sharing food with non-Jews as a sign of a time when trust existed between the two communities. Writing in the 1960s about life before the Shoah, his vision of the past was shaped by the tragedy that destroyed the world of his childhood. He chronicled the lives of those murdered during the Nazi era, but he also recalled an earlier era of good relations between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans. Heiman's father had been a kosher butcher, and the family was obser-

vant, but this did not stop them from sharing Christmas food with the family of a non-Jewish butcher with whom they were friendly.27 Not only did Jews eat in the homes of non-Jews; non-Jews were also invited to share in important Jewish meals. Heiman recalls the birth of his brother William in 1902, when he himself was five years old. It was a joyous celebration, and the entire community was invited. His memoir makes a particular point of stressing that non-Jews were present at the meal.

The dinner, after the ritual was over, was the most important event of the day. Since there existed a perfect harmony and friendship between our family and our gentile neighbors, quite a few of them took part in this family celebration.28

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The sharing of food, especially with those outside of the family, was a sign of a level of trust. The differences between self and other blurred. In such cases the boundaries of community were drawn wide, embracing not only other Jewish families but non-Jews as well. The discussion of outside food also sheds light on religious observance in

Germany. Noticeably absent from consideration of eating at the tables of non-Jews in the memoir material I examined is great concern about kashrut. This lack cannot be read simply as part of general lack of interest in observance of dietary laws. Jewish families for whom kashrut was of no concern whatsoever would not have troubled to mention dietary restric- tions when discussing issues relating to food in any context. Conversely, those for whom eating even a morsel of potentially unkosher food was unthinkable would not have deemed the issue worthy of discussion. However, in some observant homes kashrut was not the deciding factor with regard to sharing food with non-Jews. The Silbermann family, though hesitant about the cleanliness of the kitchens that produced Kirchweih doughnuts, did not worry about what type of fat had been used for frying them. This is remarkable given that lard was, and continues to be, favored for its deep-frying properties. Despite the Silbermanns' general commitment to traditional Jewish observance and likely abstinence from pork products, the decision about whether or not to eat these doughnuts was based on criteria of cleanliness, not kashrut. Moreover, it should be noted that the decision to deviate from Jewish law was made not by a male rabbi but rather by the female head of the household. In her position of authority over the kitchen, Mrs. Silbermann was in a position to set familial culinary norms as well as religious practice. Nor did the Heiman family, which was strictly Orthodox, let observance of kashrut stand in the way of celebrating Christmas with non-Jewish friends. The boundaries of inside and out, home and community, were neither static nor determin- able by a single predictor. If introducing outside foods redefined the home by bringing in part of

the outside world, eating outside of the home meant an opportunity to escape the home's limits. Just as outside foods could represent danger or familiarity, they could also represent promise and the extraordinary nature of the world beyond the home. Foods that were extravagant or complicated to make were the highlights of ventures out of the house, times when ordinary foods were left behind. For Julie [Kanter] Hein, the highlight of

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frequent Sunday outings to Wohlau was the trip to the pastry shop, where the children feasted on something sadly unavailable in their hometown of Winzig. Recalling the outings years later, Hein still felt the excitement: "Oh, wonder, 1/2 a meringue."29 Meringues, which require vigorous and protracted whipping, could be made at home but were labor-intensive and difficult to produce in the days before electric mixers. In the example with which we began, the fancy, boat-shaped strawberry pastries that Lillian Stern Bader ate during summer vacations marked moments of escape from an often difficult life.30 In these situations, outside food was extraordinary and welcome. Scarcity could also endow certain outside foods with status and sig-

nificance. Today the sight of a kiwi fruit or an orange in winter is so ordinary as to go virtually unnoticed. Yet until the advent of refrigerated air transport telescoped the distances between growing regions and markets of consumption, exotic fruits were exactly that: exotic. In central Europe, the climate is not conducive to all-season growing or to the cultivation of fruits such as bananas or mangos at any time of year. The degree to which these fruits were outside the norms of Jewish cookery can be seen in the Jewish cookbooks of the time. A few volumes included recipes that call for the use of fresh pineapple, such as Flora Wolffs Ananas-Gele from 188931 and the Ananas-Eis of Rebekka Heinemann Wolfs Kochbuch?2 However, the pineapple surfaced in Jewish cookbooks infrequently, deferring to the more common pears and apples and to seasonal fruits such as plums and cherries. Other exotic fruits, such as coconuts and passion fruits, though not completely unknown in Germany, were absent from both published and unpublished Jewish cookbooks.33 Pineapples, then, were rare fruits, luxury items, not often seen inside

Jewish homes. When they did appear, they were usually a sign of wealth. We know little about Csile Kramer, who left us a personal collection of recipes from turn-of-the-century Vienna, except that her daughter married an exceptionally wealthy banker. In itself, this does not prove that Kramer was also wealthy, but so unusual is the inclusion of Ananas Compot in her personal cookbook that it suggests that she, too, was a woman of significant financial means.34 The typical Jewish Hausfrau may have known about the pineapple, but it would have been beyond her financial reach. Encounters with this visually distinguished and gastronomically delec-

table fruit were remarkable enough to be included in memoirs. Thekla

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Aschaffenburg's brief description of her elaborate wedding in Beilfeild in 1863 gives no information about dresses, guests, or gifts, and it says of the post-ceremony celebration only that the guests were shown into a room with a beautiful terrace and "fine food." Though Thekla claimed not to remember much, she did pause to supply one additional piece of information about the delicacies: it was there that she saw "for the first time a fresh Pineapple."35 That the wedding was held in a public hall suggests that Thekla's family was at least comfortably well off.36 Yet even for this privileged young woman, the appearance of a pineapple was one of the most memorable moments of her wedding day. The pineapple similarly stands out among Julie [Kanter] Hein's child-

hood recollections. In the 1860s, Kanter looked forward to the Sabbath, when her father, a salesman, would return from his week of travels. As her mother served the noodle soup, he would tell stories of his time on the road, to which the children listened with great curiosity. They knew the names of all the villages, the farmers, and the nobles, but Kanter, in her memoir, elaborates on only one family. A man from Glumbowitz had been an official in the court of Napoleon III, and his wife was a friend of Empress Eugenie. The two themselves were of little concern to the young Kanters: "We children were only interested in the wondrous pineapple, which came from the greenhouse in Glumbowitz and whose taste I still remember."37 In both these stories the pineapple stands out. It is the quintessential outside food and as such takes on meaning far beyond its nutritional value. It is beautiful, exotic, and delectable, a symbol of an exciting wide world beyond the familiar routine of daily life. The distinctions between inside and outside foods were not confined to

metaphor. Observing kashrut presented particular challenges and opportunities to those who left the physical space of the home and needed to eat out. The complexities of kashrut observance meant that those who refrain- ed from eating treyf, non-kosher food, were restricted to eating either raw foods or comestibles prepared in kosher kitchens. The more stringent people were about observance, the more limited they were in their options for procuring food outside their own homes. This presented particular difficulties for travelers. With limited access to restaurants serving kosher food, people approached the problem in several ways. Most often, they brought their own food with them. Whenever Nora [Strauss] Rosenthal's wealthy family traveled back and forth between London and Frankfurt at

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the turn of the century, as they often did, they carried their own food.38 So did most of the Jewish cattle dealers who, in the 1880s and 1890s, set out weekly from the Hessian town of Schenklengsfeld. According to Samuel Spiro, this was no easy solution:

They had to take upon themselves great deprivation in eating. ... It is almost impossible to imagine the spartan life of these dealers. All week long they lived from bread, sausage that they took along with them, black coffee (they did not drink milk while away), and fruit.39

Foods brought from home, however paltry, provided a physical link to the home while travelling. At the same time, bringing food from home heightened awareness of being away. Distance, however, did not alter the gendered nature of interactions with home and food. Wives, mothers, and daughters prepared the foods that peddlers and cattle dealers took with them on the road, connecting them with the individuals left behind. For the women who prepared foods for travelling and then served them on the road, food-based responsibilities expanded the reaches of home far beyond its physical structure. The need to eat kosher could also link individuals to Jewish homes other

than their own, thus creating a sense of community that transcended geographical boundaries. For one wealthy family in a small provincial town, understanding the necessity for kosher food for Jews on the road shaped the physical space of their house and the composition of their household. This family reserved the three rooms of their upper floor exclusively for guests. They knew that visitors to the town inn were expected to take meals there and that the meals served were not kosher. So when a Jewish friend or even a stranger came to town, "you had to invite him to stay the night." There was a constant flow of business travelers coming through the home on their way to fairs in Frankfurt or Leipzig. Often the same faces would appear regularly. Usually too poor to pay, they would offer only thanks and an invitation to return the hospitality if the occasion ever arose. Though no one was ever turned away for lack of funds, only wealthier guests were treated to finely furnished rooms.40 The members of this family by no means saw all their fellow Jews as equals, but they recognized a common bond with their coreligionists and felt com- pelled to open their home to them.

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It is difficult to know exactly how common this practice was, but this family was not alone in opening its home to travelers. In the early years of the period of this study, when observance of kashrut was more widespread and the public availability of kosher food significantly limited, the sales- men who frequently traveled Germany's roads would have had to rely on the kindness of other Jews. This system, which brought together Jews who were essentially strangers, signified how important shared religious values could be to envisioning oneself as part of a translocal community. The "private" home itself turned into an institution of the broader community, and the boundaries between the inside and the outside of the household were blurred.

For some, the need to maintain dietary observances kept them tied them to their native home even after they had physically moved to another place. Young German Jewish boys who wanted to continue their schooling sometimes had to move to towns or cities where higher levels of education were offered. It was not always possible to find Jewish families with whom to billet these children, and this posed a significant problem for those who observed kashrut. Julius Frank, describing his own experiences in the 1890s, explains that this complication had an accepted solution:

The problem at hand had been solved before, and my parents only had to follow established usage. On Sunday night I carried back with me the cooked food for three midday dinners - to be warmed up by one of my landladies - and cold food, such as sausages and hard-boiled eggs for three suppers. My father, who regularly came over for the Thursday market, would bring the same kind of food for the rest of the week. My landladies provided me with breakfast, consisting of coffee and two rolls - with the coffee containing more ground chicory root than coffee beans - the same after I came home from school at 4 p.m., and tea with my evening meal.41

This "established usage" was by no means simple. Yet the elaborate routine that evolved around food had the consequence of compelling a weekly visit by Frank to the family home and another by a family member with the child. Despite living and eating outside the home, the child was not eating outside food. Thus, he lived simultaneously inside and outside the home, a solution that modified the rupture between the two worlds while also highlighting his disconnected position. Had Frank partaken of outside

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meals, perhaps the hosting house could have become a surrogate home. At every meal, however, he was reminded that he was not a full member of this household. Taking out his mother's cooking must also have made him acutely aware of his absence from the household where he was not eating. However German Jews came into contact with outside foods, such en-

counters were not only about nutrition but also about how individuals and families related to the world outside their homes. There was no single response to outside food. On the contrary, the relationship to outside foods was as open to change as the nature of Jewish identity. Food was a means by which Jews, and especially Jewish women, could assert their connection to or disconnection from other Jews or Gentiles, and by which they could celebrate the promise of modern life or try to isolate themselves from it.

The United States

The problems of eating "out" in the United States long predate the large influx of German-speaking Jews. Starting with the 23 Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, Jews were always a numerically small minority, which, by necessity, interacted with non-Jews both as neighbors and as pur- veyors of food. Two hundred years later, food remained a religious concern for some of the descendants of these original American Jews. Mordechai Noah, the well-known Jewish Jacksonian-era journalist and politician, allowed his sons to hang Christmas stockings, but he still checked the olive oil that was purchased for use in their home lest it be diluted with lard.42 For the German Jews who arrived in the United States between 1820 and

1880, outside food took on additional meanings, beyond those it had assumed for Jews living in Germany or, for that matter, those already native to the United States.43 The process of migration itself forced open the boundaries between inside and out; it meant leaving the world of physical space that had been one's home as well as the community, land, and cus- toms in which it had existed. When Jews traveled within Europe, they could usually expect to return to their own homes and familiar foods. Immigrants, making a home in a new country, could not expect to find even the most basic foods that had hitherto been their daily sustenance. What had been the regular fare in Germany necessarily was outside food in America. Conversely, American fare, with its array of unfamiliar dishes,

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ingredients, and methods of preparation, at least initially was outside food to newcomers. Arriving in a New World meant reassessing the definitions of inside and outside, and food was essential to this process. On the trip across the Atlantic, travelers inevitably confronted outside

food. Frieda Mashbir, who came to the United States in 1882, was happy with her "place at the table ... near the Captain" and the food that was served there, though it presumably was not kosher. In contrast, her father, who stringently observed kashrut, abstained from all meats that had been prepared on the ship and from all shellfish in his daily shipboard diet. Adhering to dietary laws, he had "bought a supply of Kosher meat at Ham- burg."44 Not bringing one's own food could make a difficult trip worse, as it did for young Bella and Fanny in 1854. They were not as wealthy or fortunate as the Mashbirs:

The voyage lasted forty-two days; not a pleasant experience in the steerage of a sailboat - particularly when one abstained from eating T'refa food.45

To those for whom kashrut was important, whether they were immigrants or travelers within Europe, bringing along inside food was the best guard against the perils of the outside world's non-kosher food. In memoirists' descriptions, the new foods of America became synony-

mous with the possibility and promise of the land itself. Ernst Kohlberg wrote to his family in Germany enthusiastically and at length about his new home. As he moved back and forth across the borders between New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, he took particular care to write about new foods. Of the delights of El Paso, he wrote in 1876:

Among the things we eat, which you do not use there I want to particularly mention chili or Spanish pepper, the principal crop here. It is eaten green when roasted, the Mexicans even eat it raw, or it is eaten cooked with cheese when it is ripe, and as red pepper {chili colorado) in many different ways. ... Enchiladas are thin slabs of dough that have been fried and covered with red chili on both sides. ... Another food, which you do not have in Germany, is a flour corn (corn meal) or maize.46

Chilies, like all spicy foods, are not commonly part of the German cuisine. "At first chili and everything connected with it was a hellish kind of food

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for me," Kohlberg wrote. Nonetheless, he felt he must learn to eat them - or perhaps he had no choice. In his eagerness to make this new land his home, within months he made the once hateful food a regular part of his diet: "now I almost can swallow it like a Mexican and I miss it if it is not served."47 He wrote that even those of the fruits that were also available in Germany were tastier and more plentiful in America, and he sought to share the wonders of his new home with those left behind by introducing them to some of this bounty. As he explained to his parents and sibling, "I am sending seeds of the melons as they are too good for you to miss trying to raise them."48 Kohlberg's embrace of chilies not only tells us how food could symbolize

the adoption of American culture but also exemplifies how gender mediat- ed the encounter with America. Most men of the period relied on women, usually a mother or wife, to provide daily nourishment. Kohlberg, however, came to the United States as a single man, which undoubtedly allowed him certain freedoms in exploring this New World. On the other hand, the absence of females who would have assumed the task of cooking for him meant that he had to make unprecedented decisions about food. He does not specify who prepared his meals. He may have been self-sufficient, assuming direct control over what he put into his mouth, but this seems unlikely. From his detailed descriptions of meals entirely based on the culinary norms of the Southwest, it seems safe to assume that they were knowledgeably cooked by local women for whom enchiladas and chilies were inside food. His presumed reliance on women who had no notion of stuffed goose, kohlrabi, or other German favorites meant that Kohlberg had little choice but to adjust to eating outside food. Though not entirely exceptional in the German Jewish migration, Kohl-

berg was not typical either. Most German Jews settled in the Midwest or on the East Coast, and while there were single people among them, the migration of family groups predominated. When women were part of the migration, the process of embracing unfamiliar outside food was usually more tentative than that described by Kohlberg. Notwithstanding their enthusiasm for America, both women and men were also nostalgic about what they had left behind. One of the first tasks for women upon arrival was setting up home, and among their most important domestic tasks was that of feeding their families. Food was a perfect medium through which women could experiment

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with balancing the Old World and the New and shape their family's experiences of both. Although beloved mothers and aunts had to be left behind, their beloved recipes did not. With a Sauerbraten cooking on the stove and a dense loaf of dark bread baking in the oven, one could close one's eyes, smell, and pretend one was in Bavaria rather than Cincinnati. Evidence of the enduring German culinary influence can be found in cookbooks from the period. Bertha Kramer's "Aunt Babette's" Cook Book included an entire section devoted to the distinctly un-American fare of strudel and dumplings. Kramer assumed her readers would know dishes like Sulze von Kalbsfeussen Gellied calves' feet), Salzgurken (pickles), or Kartoffelkloesse (potato dumplings) by their German-language names, and she included the German name for spiced rabbit, Hasenpfeffer, after the English one, presumably so that her audience would recognize the dish more easily.49 "Aunt Babette's" Cook Book, which first appeared in 1889, remained in print with few revisions through 19 14.50

"The Settlement" Cook Book, first published in 1903, shows that German recipes and methods of preparing and consuming food remained popular long after the first generation of cooks had passed on their ladles. There were separate sections for tortes as opposed to Kuchen - a distinction between types of cakes that would be meaningful to German women but not necessarily to their American counterparts. Though the volume was aimed at newly arrived East European Jewish immigrants who were unlikely to speak German, the authors, women of German Jewish heritage, nonetheless employed German words without translation, and if dishes like Schnecken (Chelsea buns) were perhaps familiar to both groups, others, such as Murberteig (short pastry), surely were not. This German tendency was not limited to authors of commercial books. In 1888, "The Ladies" of Congregation Emanuel in Denver put together The Fair Cook Book to raise money for the synagogue.51 Among the recipes donated were many German items and German-language terms: Mohn Torte and Mandel Torte, German Waffles and Deutsche Senf Gurken.52 Representing no single writer, this collection reflects the community of contributors and their familiarity with German cuisine.

It is not surprising that German-speaking Jewish immigrants maintained a culinary connection to the Old World. Nor was this tendency by any means limited to the Jewish community. Non-Jewish German Ameri- cans also maintained a strongly German approach to food.53 Not only did

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people want to recreate old dishes, but women were also comfortable and used to cooking in ways they knew. Children learned to love and expect the appearance of such dishes on the family table. Mothers, the primary cooking teachers, passed these Germany culinary traditions on to their daughters. The designation of specific foods as inside or outside was not static. With

time, some of the foods brought to the United States by Germans - Jews and non-Jews - and initially prepared exclusively inside their communities, gained broad acceptance. Dishes such as sausages served with pickled cabbage (Wurst mit Sauerkraut, i.e., hotdogs with sauerkraut) became part of the diverse American culinary lexicon. The adaptation of these items, which had been foreign to American taste buds and essentially outside American norms, signified the degree to which German immigrants, Jews included, had become part of the wider community and to which differences between inside and outside, Germany and America, were erased. Other items that, before migration, had been part of a general culinary

vocabulary were now transformed into quintessentially inside foods. Many staples of the German Jewish diet, such as the loaves of Bardies for the Sabbath or the Hanukah goose, never made it into the mainstream of American Jewish cuisine, let alone the American one. As such, these dishes, which had been part of a broader norm in the Old Country, were transformed into outside foods - outside the New World culinary vocabulary. They were symbols of the distinctions between German American Jews and other German Americans, between Jews and non-Jews, and between German American Jews and other American Jews. On the other hand, continuing to prepare Kalbsfeussen and Kartoffelkloesse not only set Jews apart from other Americans; it also helped maintain a connection with homes and communities in Germany.54

Despite this transmission of German foodways, the diet of German- speaking Jews in the United States was by no means an exact duplication of Old World habits. As time passed, the connection to Germany no longer dominated the Jewish table. German fare continued to be cooked and eaten, but by the end of the nineteenth century it was not the primary cuisine in homes of German Jewish heritage. Like much about America, "American" foods were appealing.55 American food was diverse and exciting. Each region had its specialties, such as Boston baked beans in the Northeast or gumbo in the South. There were new ingredients like baking

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powder and squirrel. In the United States, immigrants encountered corn and layer cakes. To newcomers, these were simultaneously tasty and, nonetheless, essentially outside food, unfamiliar and unusual. To understand new ingredients and methods of preparation, first-generation immigrants had to venture outside the home and beyond personal experience. Their eagerness in doing so can be seen in the same sources that tell us

of the maintenance of German foodways. "Aunt Babette's" Cook Book, the most Germanized of the American Jewish cookbooks, is also strongly American. Kramer includes recipes for Tapioca Cream, Taffy, Okra Gumbo Soup, and other American fare.56 The distinctly German tortes appear alongside distinctly American layer cakes in a single chapter that presents both approaches to dessert on equal footing. Both "The Settlement" Cook Book and The Fair Cook Book, while showing a strong German influence and attesting to the endurance of German dishes and culinary terms, are clearly American. In a manner similar to Kramer's, they include a majority of specifically American dishes. Though not all German- speaking Jewish immigrants were as quick as Ernst Kohlberg to abandon everything German, most embraced their new homeland. By 1903, when "The Settlement" Cook Book appeared, there was no question that for Ger- man American Jews, American fare had made the transition from outside to inside food. The embrace of new foods is part of migration no matter what the

circumstances. Those Jews who chose to leave Europe and come to a new country in the nineteenth century were by nature adventurous, and that trait extended into the culinary realm. But the particular physical charac- teristics of the Jewish community in America no doubt contributed to the ways in which they adapted their cuisine. The size and demographic settlement pattern of Jews in the United States was different from that in Europe. Jews numbered only 50,000 in 1850, 0.2% of the total population. The immigration of Jews from German-speaking lands still brought the total to only 250,000 by 1880 - 0.5% of the total population. Settling in various regions of the country, the German-speaking Jewish community was numerically spread thin. It did not recreate the population densities that in Germany had allowed for communal ovens to be used for Sabbath cooking or for shameses to go crying through the street announcing weddings. Social contact with non-Jews was the norm, not the exception,57 and food, as discussed at the start of this paper, is an essential component

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of social ties. Nonetheless, German Jewish immigrants and their descendants chose not only to adopt the variety of foods they encountered in their new homeland but to continue German traditions as well. They also used food to maintain translocal connections with other German Jews, both in the United States and in the Old World. The business of preparing and eating food gave German American Jews a

concrete means continually to negotiate the various components of their identities and to link individuals to larger and even unseen communities. When Amelia Judah Cromline married in 1901, she followed the practice of many brides by copying out recipes to guide her in setting up her own kitchen. Only two of these were passed down to her granddaughter, Sadie Rice Rich. The endurance of Cromline's Leb Kuchen (sic) and White Fruit Cake, one very German and the other very American, is a testament to the culinary balance that German Jews struck in America.58 It is not surprising that Jews who read the weekly Die Deborah, a German-language American Jewish newspaper, or attended German theater and German reading groups while also participating in American civic and cultural society, cooked two cuisines.59 This dietary duality represented their attempts to place themselves simultaneously within two communities.

Conclusion

As Jews in Germany and in the United States struggled to define themselves as part of multiple communities, the extraordinary nature of outside food forced them to consider their vision of self and community. The ability to share food with others was predicated on the ability to see those individuals as sharing at least some common values. In modern Germany and in the United States, the legal, social, and physical barriers separating groups along religious lines were not solid, and encounters with foreign, outside foods was inevitable. For women in particular, but for men as well, outside foods provided real and symbolic opportunities for Jews to explore the expanding boundaries of the modern world. Emancipation might be a series of rights and obligations bestowed upon Jews from the outside, but Jews were not passive in the process of acculturation. Decisions about what to eat were made daily by all Jews, and when those decisions involved outside foods, individual Jews made strong statements about their visions of community and their relationship to the world outside the home.

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As this paper has endeavored to show, there were no simple answers. For Jews in Germany, outside food meant confronting the past and promise of German life. Those eating out, in a non-kosher world, had to make a choice about their commitment to Jewish law. Bringing along kosher food from home set an individual apart from the wider world and simultaneously tied her or him to the traditional way of life. Partaking of outside food, however, did not in and of itself negate connection to traditional Judaism. As the barriers between the German non-Jewish and German Jewish communities came down, food was one of the many ways Jews expressed their intention to identify in many settings. Kashrut was not the only obstacle Jews had to overcome when they encountered outside food. Negative notions about the nature of the non-Jewish community and kitchen permeated Jewish life. Sharing food with non-Jews forced Jews to examine those ideas. For German-speaking Jews who came to the United States, identity was

by nature multivalent. In addition to the pulls of traditional Jewish life and of the modern non-Jewish world, which were also felt by Jews in Western Europe, German Jews in the United States maintained connections to two homelands. The excitement and possibility of life in the United States, with its unprecedented openness to Jews, fostered openness and allegiance. At the same time, memories of life in Germany continued to hold allure. By transforming American food, which initially was outside food, into inside food while maintaining a connection to German cookery, which was outside food in America, these Jews found a way to express the uniqueness of their binational Jewish experience. For German Jews, the lines between inside and outside were permeable

and malleable. Home was quintessentially an inside space, but food left it and came into it. Outside food stood for that which was fantastical and beyond the normal, mundane experience of every day life. It also sym- bolized the potential for assimilation and integration into a broader non- Jewish world, with its economic, social, and educational opportunities as well as its culinary delights. This would be a world safe for Jews, in which they would share a vision of community with their non-Jewish neighbors. The ability to consume outside food while continuing to eat at home signaled the promise of the modern era, which would not force Jews to choose allegiance to one identity, but rather would allow them to serve up several dishes, from several sources, on the same table.

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Notes

Acknowledgements: An earlier version of this paper was presented on February 17, 2000, at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, as part of the Jewish Feminist Research Group of Ma'yan: The Jewish Women's Project of the JCC on the Upper West Side of New York City. I am grateful to Nancy Reagin and Maurie Sacks, whose insightful comments on that original work helped shape the revisions. I would like to thank Libby Garland, Idana Goldberg, Rebecca Kobrin, Alex Molot, Annie Polland, Leslie Paris, and especially Jane Rothstein for their input, and Renate Evers of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York, for archival help. Paula Hyman, Marion Kaplan, and Maria Baader provided essential insights that strengthened this work. 1. Lillian M. Bader, "One Life is Not Enough," TMs, M.E. 784, Leo Baeck Insti- tute, New York, p. 4. 2. Marion Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). 3. My broader project deals extensively with the differences and similarities between German-speaking Jews in Europe and in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. 4. Traditionally, the Jewish migration to the United States from 1820 through 1880 has been called the German Jewish migration. Historian Hasia Diner has shown that among this group of newcomers there were many from European countries other than what later became Germany. While this migration was not monolithic, German culture, language, and visions of Judaism were predominant. As a result, this work focuses on German Jewish experiences and uses the term "German Jews" throughout. 5. See Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class (London: Hutchinson, 1987); Kaplan, Jewish Middle Class (above, note 2); Colleen McDannell, The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840-1900 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); and Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 6. Kaplan, Jewish Middle Class (above, note 2). 7. Samuel Spiro, in Monika Richarz (ed.), Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 197-211. 8. Strict observance of kashrut can lead to social barriers, in that one may share in prepared food only if its preparation has been carried out in accordance with a complex set of regulations that can be fulfilled only in a kosher-compliant kitchen. Yet for the most part the dietary laws are taken as articles of faith of Jewish observance which have no overt social agenda. There are some exceptions. With

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regard to the rabbinic prohibitions on drinking wine produced by non-Jews, the Talmud makes it clear that one of main reasons for enforcing such a ban is to restrict socializing that might lead to intermarriage or apostasy. Cf. Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1979). 9. Arnold Eisen, in Rethinking Modern Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), has recently challenged scholars of Jewish life to reexamine Jewish practice. He suggests that practices are not always connected directly to belief. 10. This was the case in at least one town, Steinach, where observant families were still bringing food to the baker during Julius Frank's childhood in the late 1890s and 1900s. See Julius Frank, "Reminiscences of Days Gone By," TMs, M.E. 142, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, pp. 4-5. 11. (Arthur Kahn), "Lebenserinnerungen eines Juden," M.E. 741, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, p. 2. 12. "Plate" renders the word Salfet in the original text. I have been unable to locate an exact translation. From the context one may assume that Calvary meant either plate or spoon, and I believe plate is the most likely. Esther Calvary, "Kind- heitserinnerungen," TMs, M.E. 79, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, pp. 34-35. 13. Ibid. 14. Clara Geissmar, "Remembrances," in Richarz, Jewish Life in Germany (above, note 6), p. 156. 15. Ibid., p. 155. 16. Adolf Hoenig (ca. 1915), TMs, Biographies File, Memoirs: Austria 1837, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio (English trans, and ed. by Anne Fried), p. 73. 11. Ibid., p. 74. 18. Commenting on an earlier version of the present paper, historian Nancy Reagin suggested that this story should be read as a rape, in which the assailants use the phallic sausage to physically penetrate a helpless victim. As happens so often in cases of rape, the victim is held accountable for this grotesque transgression. Outraged at the violence and unsure how to respond, the community responds by ostracizing the victim. This insightful reading of the story offers an understanding that is beyond the direct purview of this paper but is nonetheless worthy of discussion. I thank Professor Reagin for bringing it to my attention. 19. Hoenig (above, note 16), p. 75. 20. Ibid, p. 76. 21. Ibid, p. 77. 22. Julius Frank, "Reminiscences" (above, note 9), p. 136. 23. Eduard Silbermann, "Erinnerungen 1851-1917," TMs, M.E. 601/1, Leo Baeck Institute, New York (1916?), p. 152. 24. Steven M. Lowenstein et al., German-Jewish History in Modern Times: II:

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Integration in Dispute 1871-1918 (English trans, by Carol A. Devore; New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 25. The shema is a fundamental declaration of faith that is central to Jewish prayer but in no way connected with food or eating. 26. Eric Fischer, "Memoirs & Reminiscences," TMs, M.E. 348, Leo Baeck Institute, New York (1984), p. 5. 27. Joseph Heiman and Inge Heiman Karo, "Joseph and His Daughter," TMs, M.E. 1100, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, p. 146. l&.Ibid., 146. 29. Julie Hein, "Erinnerungsbltter," TMs, M.E. 262, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, p. 33. 30. Lillian M. Bader, "One Life is Not Enough" (above, note 1), p. 4. 31. Flora Pfeffer Wollf, Koch- und Wirthschaftsbuch fr Jdische Hausfrauen (Berlin: Siegfried Cronbach, 1889). 32. Rebekka Wolf, Kochbuch fr Israelitische Frauen, 11th ed. (Berlin: J. Kauffmann, 1896). 33. In her Illustriertes Universal Kochbuch fr Gesunde und Kranke: Enthalt Nahrungs- mittellehre, Theorie der Kochkunft, sowie nahe an 3000 erprobte und bewhrte Rezepte fur die brgerliche, die feinste und die Krankenkche (12th ed.; Berlin: W. Herlet, 1907), Lina Morgenstern includes illustrations of and instruction for preparing a wide range of exotic fruits, which suggests that these items were not entirely unknown in Germany at the turn of the century. 34. Csile Kramer, "Kochrecepte," AMs (not yet catalogued), Edith Droch-Weisz Collection, Leo Baeck Institute, New York. 35. Thekla Aschaffenburg, TMs, M.E. 772, Leo Baeck Institute, New York (Cologne, 1919), pp. 21-22. 36. In both the German-speaking lands and the United States, most weddings were home-based affairs, though they were not necessarily modest or small. For several examples of this practice see: Anna Auerbach, "Chronik unserer Familie," TMs, M.E. 707, Leo Baeck Institute, New York (1905), p. 27; Mrs. Henry M. Gerstlely, "Reminiscences, Chicago, 111. 1850-1934," TMs, S.C. 3912, American Jewish Ar- chives, Cincinnati, Ohio (1931), p. 39; Lawrence W. Crohn, "We Remember: Saga of the Baum-Webster Family Tree 1842-1964," TMs, Baum-Webster Family, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio (1964), p. 31; and "Interview with Mrs. Ray Goodrich," TMs, Biographies File, Eugene, Oregon, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio (1963), pp. 4-5. Some wealthy families did hold celeb- rations in restaurants or public halls, and this became more common after 1900. These occasions, however, were exceptional rather than normative. For examples see Rahel Liebeschuetz, "Hugo Carl Plaut, Part I: 1858-1890," TMs, ME 847/1, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, pp. 66 and 69; and Auerbach, "Chronik," p. 40.

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37. Julie Hein, "Erinnerungsbltter" (above, note 27), p. 10. 38. Nora Rosenthal, "Opus One," TMs, M.E. 534, Leo Baeck Institute, New York. (1973-1976), p. 83. 39. Spiro (above, note 6), p. 201. 40. (Arthur Kahn), "Lebenserinnerungen eines Juden" (above, note 10), p. 9. 41. Julius Frank, "Reminiscences" (above, note 9), p. 39. 42. Jonathan Sarna, Jacksonian Jew: The Two Worlds ofMordechai Noah (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1981), p. 141. 43. The subject of outside food for Jews in the United States is complex and extends far beyond the aspects discussed in this paper. Some of the many broader issues, including Americanization and kashrut, will be treated in my larger project. 44. Frieda Mashbir, "Autobiography describing her childhood and education in a small East German town," TMs, 1925, Biographies File, American Jewish Ar- chives, Cincinnati, Ohio (1925), p. 6. 45. Herman Kussy, "The Story of Gustav and Bella Kussy: A Family Chronicle," TMs, Sarah Kussy Collection, *P-4, Kussy Family Genealogy Folder, Box 1, American Jewish Historical Society, Waltham, Mass., and New York (Newark, 1945), p. 11. 46. Ernst Kohlberg, "A Translation of the Letters written by Ernst Kohlberg 1875- 1876-1877: Preserved for Eleanor Frances Kohlberg and Dedicated to Olga Kohlberg" (English trans, by Walter L. Kohlberg), Box 1794, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio (New York, El Paso, Texas, and Mexico, 1875- 1902). 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Bertha Kramer, "Aunt Babette's" Cook Book: Foreign and Domestic Receipts for the Household (Cincinnati: Bloch Publishing and Printing Co., 1889). For Sulze von Kalbsfeussen, Salzgurken, Kartoffelkloesse, and Hasenpfeffer see pp. 96, 419, and 85 respectively. "Aunt Babette's" included not only rabbit but also other non-kosher foodstuffs. For a complete discussion of kashrut in this and other nineteenth- century Jewish cookbooks see Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "The Kosher Gourmet in the Nineteenth-Century Kitchen: Three Jewish Cookbooks in Historical Perspective," The Journal of Gastronomy, 2:4 (1986/7), pp. 51-89; and idem, "Kitchen Judaism," in Susan L. Braunstein and Jenna Weissman Joselit (eds.), Getting Comfortable in New York: The American Jewish Home, 1880-1950 (New York: The Jewish Museum, 1990), pp. 77-105. See also Ruth Abusch- Magder, "Does it Have to Be Kosher to be Jewish? Women and the Formation of Identity and Community in Germany and the United States, 1850-1905," paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Jewish Studies, Boston, Mass., 17-19 December 2000.

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50. For a detailed account of its publication history see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "Kitchen Judaism" (see preceding note), pp. 77-105. 51. Idem, "The Moral Sublime: The Temple Emanuel Fair and Its Cookbook, Denver, 1888," in Anne L. Bower (ed.), Recipes for Reading (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), pp. 136-153. 52. The Ladies of Congregation Emanuel, The Fair Cook Book (Denver: The Ladies of Congregation Emanuel, 1888). 53. William Woys Weavers, Sauerkraut Yankees: Pennsylvania-German Foods and Foodways (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). 54. The question of how and why specific food items became part of the American diet while others did not demands more attention. Certainly the legacy of two world wars altered the tendency to incorporate German dishes into the American heritage. Many of the foods originally belonging to the German Jewish culinary lexicon which continue to be consumed are ones that German Jewish Americans shared with other German Americans, while more uniquely Jewish items, such as Barches, all but disappeared from the American Jewish diet and never made it into broader American cuisine. One possible explanation for this might be the degree to which the German Jewish heritage has been overshadowed by the cultural legacy of the significantly larger, later group of East European Jewish immigrants. 55. There is no single "American" cuisine, but rather a diversity of eating patterns that reflect regional, ethnic, religious, and class backgrounds. While recognizing this variety, I have chosen to talk more broadly about American cuisine in order to reflect the encounter of German Jews with an unfamiliar range of foods and eating patterns upon their arrival in the United States. 56. Kramer, "Aunt Babette's" Cook Book (above, note 47); for Tapioca Cream, Taffy, and Okra Gumbo Soup see pp. 245, 365, and 18 respectively. 57. Hasia Diner, A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration 1820-1880 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). 58. Amelia Judah Cromline, TMs, Miscellaneous File, Food and Cooking: Recipes of Amelia Judah Cromline, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio, p. 2. 59. In A Time for Gathering (above, note 54), Hasia Diner suggests that not all Jewish immigrants from German-speaking lands espoused German cultural values. Despite this corrective to the general historiographical trend, she does not deny the importance of German culture for many Jews. She documents Jewish participation in German reading groups, theater, and singing and social societies.

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Issue Table of ContentsNashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, No. 5, Feeding an Identity: Gender, Food, and Survival (Fall, 5763/2002), pp. 1-270Front MatterTo Our Readers [pp. 5-6]Introduction: Feeding an Identity-Gender, Food, and Survival [pp. 7-13]Having Their Space and Eating There Too: Bread Production and Female Power in Ancient Israelite Households [pp. 14-44]Spirituality, Baking, and the Queen of Heaven [pp. 45-52]Eating "Out": Food and the Boundaries of Jewish Community and Home in Germany and the United States [pp. 53-82]The Rabbi's Daughter in and out of the Kitchen: Feminist Literary Negotiations [pp. 83-104]Evoking the Essence of the Divine: The Construction of Identity through Food in the Syrian Jewish Community in Mexico [pp. 105-128]Not a Seder: Gender, Meal, and Memory Revisited in a Christian Community [pp. 129-147]Oranges and Seders: Symbols of Jewish Women's Wrestlings [pp. 148-171]The Order of Things [pp. 172-173]Blood Lines [pp. 174-179]Resident Artist: The Wedding of Food and Death [pp. 180-187]Symposium: Changes and Directions in Women's and Gender Studies - Contrasts and Comparisons [pp. 188-230]Reader Response: How Shall We Tell the Story of Beruriah's End? [pp. 231-239]Review: untitled [pp. 240-255]Review: untitled [pp. 256-259]Review: untitled [pp. 260-261]Back Matter

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Abusch-magder 2002 Eating Out Food & Boundaries of Jewish Community

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