Culinary Acculturation
In 1924, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act which essentially froze all new Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. This reactionary piece of legislation capped immigration to percentages based on the countries of origin as recorded in the 1890 census, stopping most immigration from non-Western European countries. This set the stage for the mass-murder of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust (1933-1945), as refugees fleeing Europe were turned away at American ports.
By that point, there were already many Jewish immigrants in the United States, concentrated in large cities, chief among them New York. The majority of them were Eastern European Jews. As these immigrants began to marry and have children, many of their descendants began to assimilate and acculturate, and identify as Americans. Immigrant parents wanted the American Dream for their children. They encouraged their kids to go to college and pursue professional degrees, creating cadres of Jewish doctors, lawyers, and accountants. There were quotas restricting the number of Jewish students at many top tier universities until the 1950s, a legacy of American antisemitism.
For some, acculturating to America meant secularizing while remaining deeply committed to their cultural and ethnic identity as Jews. The establishment that most symbolizes this change in American Judaism is the kosher-style deli. These institutions, epitomized by Katz’s and the 2nd Avenue Deli in New York or Canter’s in Los Angeles, combine the meat delikatessen and the dairy appetizing store into one location, where the majority of the dietary restrictions are relaxed. Most explicit treif (“torn”, un-kosher) products (like pork chops or lobster) are eschewed, with an exception often made for bacon. Similarly, meat and milk are not often mixed except on sandwiches like the Rueben or a classic American cheeseburger. These changes to Jewish foodways, at least in this generation, did not penetrate the sacred bubble of the home kitchen but were largely embraced outside of the home.
For those raised during this Golden Age of the Jewish deli, these places spark nostalgia so palpable that it has been passed down through the generations. The deli (along with the JCC) is a secular synagogue, a safe space for Jews to gather together, gossiping over delicacies. At the deli, the dishes of an entire calendar year can all be made-to-order: Purim hamantaschen, Passover matzah brei, Shavuot cheesecake, Rosh Hashanah brisket, Hanukkah latkes, chicken noodle soup and a bagel with lox can all grace the same table.
On a side note, the Jews that eat Chinese food on Christmas are participating in a uniquely Jewish tradition. This tradition, a common pop culture trope, originated due to the close geographic proximity of Jewish and Chinese immigrants in New York City, neither of whom celebrate Christmas. Additionally, for Jewish immigrants who keep kosher Chinese food has very little dairy. The meat, while often the very treif pork, is chopped finely and mixed into dishes like dumplings or fried rice. Lastly, many Jewish immigrants could feel at home surrounded by the exoticism and cultural otherness of the Chinese restaurants, especially compared to the explicitly Christian decor of neighboring German, Irish, or Italian restaurants.
During the mid century, the Jewish kitchen was fully modernized alongside the rest of America. Industrially produced food began to arrive in American kitchens in the late 1800s, but until the mass-production and rationing of WWII, most staple food items were still made at home. The Manischewitz Company, famous for machine-made square matzah, was founded in 1888 in Cincinnati, Ohio and now is one of the world’s largest kosher food producers. Kosher certification agencies, like the OU and Star-K, also came about with the rise of industrial kosher food manufacturing. These agencies hire rabbis that are trained in the laws of kashrut and who supervise the production of ingredients, charging a fee for the service. Once supervised, food manufacturers are able to claim that their product is kosher, opening their market to the kosher-conscious consumer. Industrial kosher slaughterhouses were also on the rise in this period, many with conditions not much better than those described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. However, this meant that kosher meat was much more accessible than it had been in Europe, shaping the dietary habits of Jews, no matter their income level.
The industrial food products that have most radically shaped modern Jewish cookery is vegetable oil and shortening like Crisco. Before this invention, Ashkenazi food was dominated by schmaltz. Schmaltz, as a meat product, was unable to be eaten with any dairy products. Ashkenazim, far from the Mediterranean, did not have access to the olive oil that is ubiquitous in Sephardic food. While Crisco and other vegetable oils revolutionized the kosher kitchen, allowing for such delicacies like pie crust served with a dairy meal, the abandonment of schmaltz has created a common conception of Ashkenazi food as bland and unappealing.
The food that most signifies the midcentury is the classic pastrami sandwich. Originally a Hanukkah delicacy from Romania called pasturma made from brined goose breast, the dish evolved in America. The availability of cheap beef brisket made this festive specialty into an everyday food. If not smoked, the brined brisket can be boiled and served as corned beef.
