SC - Tzimmes

[Margo Hablutzel]

Sindara asked for my recipe, and documentation.  As for the latter, it is:
"oy, the recipe has been in our family for generations...!!"  (I was very
upset one time to learn that my mother's noodle kugel dated only to the copy
of "Love and Knishes" she received as a young bride.)

Of course, everybody does it differently.  This is my recipe:

Take a crockpot.  Put enough liquid in to glaze the bottom.  Add layers
 of: sweet potatoes, washed and chunked (peeling optional); carrots
 (same); an onion sliced over; the meat (cheap cuts of beef are best:
 I think short ribs are too fatty and use chuck or brisket); dried
 prunes and apricots.  Add the rest of the liquid, cover, and cook all
 day on low.

Needless to say, this is a fairly modern version!  It was slow-cooked or
baked until I decided that the crockpot was entirely too useful (my mother,
when we were growing up, used one often when we had more important things to
do that day, like school and work, or cleaning the gutters and installing
storm windows).   Tzimmes and other dishes, such as cholent, came about
because they slow-cooked, meaning the family did not have to cook on
Shabbat.  They were buried in a low fire, or hot coals, to cook slowly until
Saturday afternoon.  This is why tough cuts of beef, root vegetables, larger
dried beans (for cholent but not for tzimmes) and dried fruit are favoured,
they hold up to a long, slow cooking.

Cholent would not be appropriate for Pesach, as my preferred version
includes lima beans (may be OK if you are Sephardic) and barley (forbidden).
But it is good!   I note that the Ashkenazic Jews tend to ban more items
(rice, corn, beans, lentils, peas) than the Sephardic (whose diet probably
relies more upon them); one of the hardest things for me to give up at
Passover is peanut butter.  I actually like the honey cakes and sponge cakes
that become dessert for days (plus custards and the like, and lots of
fruit), and I just adore macaroons.  But peanut butter is also forbidden
under some traditions.

There are vegetarian tzimmes, as well as those made with beef.  I don't know
of any made with other meats.  The simplest tzimmes look horrifyingly like
the honeyed carrots that too many SCA Cooks learn as their first - and
sometimes their only - vegetable.  Tzimmes made with dried fruit is a
wonderful dessert also, like a compote.

As another note, lamb stews are very common for Passover, to connote the
paschal lamb.  I have not suggested this to Franz as lamb can be more
expensive than beef.


						---= Margo Lynn (the Jewish
persona)

(whose SCA name gets mispronounced as Mor-GAIN for no reason she
understands, and who was glad to convince the heralds that 'Cely' was not a
valid middle name - it was a carryover from my original registered name -
because it gets mispronounced as "kel-lee")


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	           |/ margolh at nortelnetworks.com <mailto:margolh at nt.com>  *
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	                      Morgan Cain * Steppes, Ansteorra


	                     May God have mercy on my enemies
	                     For they shall certainly need it.

	      For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

                I intend to live forever -- so far, so good!
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