Some
Like
It
Hot
Everything you always
wanted to know about
cholent.
ELIZABETH A.PPLEBAUN
ApplePee Editor
S
ome topics are best left for discussion
among only the closest of acquaintances:
Politics, of course, and religion.
But more sensitive than either of these — in
fact, this is such a potential hot (pardon the pun)
button that it should be raised only among life-
long, totally committed friends — is the subject of
cholent.
There is little consensus on what constitutes a
good cholent. Among the issues up for debate:
• How watery should it be?
• To add beans or not to add beans?
• Must cholent have a garlicky taste?
• Does a decent vegetarian cholent really exist?
Veig,htv considerations, indeed.
•
What everyone can agree on, however. is that
cholent is a Shabbat staple and the favorite of
Jewish families worldwide.
Whether you're looking forward to your own
homemade cholent this Shabbat, or anticipating a
tasty cholent ar the home of a friend, - or if you've
never tried it before and realize this is the time to
do so, here are some acts about this traditional
jewish dish.
#1) What exactly is cholent?
Cholent (alternately spelled tschult, shulent, chu-
lent, tschoolent, tsholnt and others too numerous
to mention here) is a hot dish, a kind of stew, that
one begins cooking before Shabbat, either in
crockpor, atop the stove or in the oven, to enjoy
Saturday afternoon:
The dish was created our of necessity. Since
Halachah (Jewish law) forbids cooking on Shabbat,
cholent provided a way to have hot food and not
violate the commandment.
The basic mixture: beans, meat, barley, onion,
marrow bones, potatoes, water.
#2) What does "cholent" mean?
An excellent question. Alas, there is no answer.
Some believe the word derived from the French
chia, which means hot, while others say it comes
from the Yiddish shul ende, or the end of Shabbat
morning davening (praying) — and time to eat.
#3) Variations on a theme:
In North Africa, Jews call cholent difina or shame,
while in Israel it's called /Amin ("hot").
#4) So how do you make it?
Here's a basic, foolproof recipe for the uninitiated:
Place in crock pot:
•Any mixture of dried beans,
soaked overnight (about one
handful per person)
Sliced potatoes (about one per
person)
'Beef (to taste)
'Several marrow bones
You can learn a lot by learning a little. In Fact-A-Day,
AppleTree provides you with fascinating tidbits about any
Jewish subject, past or present. This month, as we welcome
(or not) the cold weather, you'll find a collection of 31 —
one for each day of January — great facts about that hot
dish, cholent.
•One small onion
'Handful of barley
'Spices (paprika, garlic — or
perhaps brown sugar)
• \\ titer — and this is the trickiest part. Add
enough to cover about 2/3 of the cholent (you can
-always add more before Shabbat. The idea is to ler
the mixture generate enough thick juice to cook in
itself so that thefinal result isn't like soup; but of
course you don't want to add too little and have
your meal come out like a brick.
Cook overnight — probably on low, unless your
crock pot is on its last leg.
.#5) According to author Robert Sternberg, writing
in his classic cookbook Yiddish Cuisine, cholent is
"probably the dish that has the oldest recorded
written history. It is mentioned in the Talmud,
where the procedure for making it was not so dif-
ferent from that used today except that in those
days of primitive (or nonexistent) ovens, the tightly
sealed pot with the cholent in it was lowered into a
pit in the ground and left there overnight to be
cooked by the heat generated by the ground itself."
#6) Some families like to add a small bundle of
chickpeas (preferably in cheesecloth) to be cooked
separately, atop the cholent. These are then served
as a side dish, taking on a hint of the cholent flavor
but still retaining the unique taste of the chickpeas.
This is a tradition with its origins in North Africa,
where some Jews also like to add cracked wheat to
their cholent.
#7) Another popular set-it-atop-the-cholent
favorite is kishke, or some form of kugel or
dumpling. Some refer to the dumpling addition as
the cholent ganef ('iddish for "thief') because it
steals" the flavor of the cholent as it cooks.
#8) Talk about the old world meeting the new ...
This most ancient Jewish dish is a popular topic
on, of all places, the Internet, where you can find
more cholent recipes than you could eat in a year.
Just type in the world "cholent" for your search
engine and you'll find. among others, recipes for
`Aaron's Cholent," "Moroccan Cholent," .
"Vegetarian Cholent" and "Cholent for
Beginners." A few places to look:
WWW. bcpl.n.et (for vegetarian cholent)
wwv,:chebucto.ns.ca (from someone who, "after
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