Food For Thought

In her memoir Miriam's Kitchen, former Detroiter
Elizabeth Ehrlich pays homage to past generations and
provides inspiration to future ones.

Judaism, kashrut attracted her first.
Like many liberal Jews who lusher
their kitchens, Ehrlich feels that
kashrut invests the mundane with
importance, creating moments that
connect the individual to past, to

vides a basis for spiritual things to
happen."
Finding meaning in the syna-
gogue has been more of a stretch.
mong the recipes and mem-
Exposed mostly to Orthodox wor-
ories of Miriam's Kitchen by
ship, Ehrlich, 42, bridled against
Elizabeth Ehrlich (Viking,
what she saw as its irrele-
$24.95) are
vance and sexism and
essays that lay out a
only recently is pursuing
path familiar to thou-
Editor's note:
the synagogue skills she
sands of American Jews
I sat down to read
missed
learning as a child.
born after World War
Elizabeth Ehrlich's
"The
kitchen was the place
II: the trail between dis-
memoir, Miriam's
where
my
return started; what
affiliation and religious
Kitchen, on a Rosh
happens
to
me in the syna-
observance trod by peo-
Hashanah afternoon,
gogue is more uncertain," says
ple who grew up in
and I was immedi-
Ehrlich, a freelance writer and
assimilated or "cultural-
ately swept back to
former social issues editor at
ly" Jewish homes and,
my days as a young
Business Week.
as adults, seek out
child in the Dexter
Still, she, along with her
meaning through ritual
neighborhood where
and prayer.
husband and three children,
my grandparents
are Saturday morning regulars
Elizabeth Ehrlich's
lived a short skip
childhood was filled
at an egalitarian Conservative
across the hall in the
synagogue
near their home in
with markers of Jewish
four-flat we called
identity, but connected-
Westchester
County, N.Y.
home.
(after a stint in a small
ness to God took a
The smells and
back seat to ethnic
"Conservadox" shul), and
sounds of our moth-
diversity and connec-
Ehrlich
is studying Torah can-
ers' and grandmoth-
tion to the world at
filiation
and Talmud.
Elizabeth Ehrlich: "Iforgot the child-
ers' kitchens jump
large.
While
she doesn't think
hood appetites that could only be satis-
off the page in this
She hearkens back to
fied in my grandmothers' kosher
Miriam's
dishes
will ever
beautifully written
kitchens. I forgot the practical, mythical
her own Detroit child-
become
her
everyday
cooking,
memoir. Buy a copy
teachings, spiraling back through time,
hood, where, she says,
she
says,
she
prizes
the
skills
for someone you
,
that the grandmothers had once dished
"my family became an
and
discipline
embodied
by
love.
out with their soup. I forgot the dignity
idiosyncratic minority:
women like Miriam, as well as
my immigrants had, that comes with
left-wing, bookish,
— Gail Zimmerman the history and values they
the connection to something larger than
hypersensitive, white,
represent. What was for many
everyday life, even when you are doing
Jewish, anti-middle
Jews an embarrassment is, to
nothing more than stirring soup."
Ehrlich, a blessing: "My kids
class."
After graduating
are lucky to have immigrant
grandparents." ❑
from the University of
future, to the earth, to other species
Michigan, Ehrlich became a journalist
and to other people."
and editor, a busy wife and mother.
Elizabeth Ehrlich will speak and
Now that she's been keeping kosher
sign copies of Miriam's Kitchen at
Her Judaism remained on the back
for a while, she said in an interview, "I
burner.
the Jewish Book Fair at the Maple
miss the intense consciousness and self-
When she began to return to her
Drake JCC at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov.
consciousness of that early period. It
11. She also will sign copies of her
Ellen Jaffe McClain is the author of
was wonderful; it made everything
book 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11,
Embracing the Stranger: Intermarriage
much more urgent and meanin
at Borders Books and Music, 30995
and the Future of the American Jewish
That was my way of finding meaning
Orchard Lake Road, Farmington
Community (Basic Books, 1995).
and purpose as a Jew. The ritual pro-
Hills
'-'1$44fts;
AZh

ELLEN JAFFE MCCLAIN
Special to The Jewish News

A

11/7
1997

94

Mtriam s Kitchen ---
A Review

ike many Jews, I grew up
in a household in which
ood. was equated with
Inc, Elizabeth
however, food
e, family, com-
munity, tradi
tion,
In her Mem-
. .
► ir
tchen, Ehrlich
chronicles four
generatt9ns of
her family
across Eumpe,
the Atlantic
and the
American East,
presenting
readers with a
landscape dot-
ted with fra-
grant kitchens --- and a clutch of
high-calorie recipes.
In a month-by-month flow of
essays, Ehrlich weaves a number of
motifs into an attractive, if famil-
iar, melody that should resonate
with many American Jewish
women: her family's migration
from Europe to America and from
frumischkeit to secularism; her in-
laws' survival of the Holocaust; her
metamorphosis from bohemian
single gal to suburban wife and
mother; and her growing fascina-
tion with Jewish observance.
This is a book of small subjects,
small lives and small moments;
bobbies cooking for holidays, the
selection of a wedding ring, a new
mother's homecoming. In her
kitchen, Ehrlich's mother-in-law,
Miriam, begins to reveal her
Holocaust experiences as she
teaches her daughter-in-law how
to cook her signature dishes.
While the book's self-revelation
sometimes gets to be a bit much,
the glimpses into her parents' and
grandparents' pasts are tender and
compelling. Miriam's Kitchen con-
tains subtexts that are valuable on
any level: the notion that there are
many kinds of Jews and many ways
to be Jewish; the desirability of
spiritual evolution; the knowledge
that we are all bridges between the
Jewish past and the Jewish future.

— Reviewed by Ellen Jaffe McClain