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Facon, Anyone?
HOLIDAY DINNERS
Kosherfest 2012 serves up fake
bacon and real innovation.
I
Gil Shefler
JNS.org
Secaucus, N.J.
N
othing says Jewish food like
a bowl of matzah-ball soup
or a slab of pastrami on rye.
But will Mediterranean gefilte fish or
facon also be on that list one day?
Facon, you ask? As the name
implies, it's fake
bacon, and it
was just one of
the many novel-
ties unleashed
on the Jewish
culinary scene
at Kosherfest,
the nation's largest annual kosher-food
trade show, which took place Nov.
13-14. Thousands of rabbis, restaura-
teurs, chefs, foodies and at least one
hungry journalist crammed into the
Meadowlands Expo Center in New
Jersey to nosh on the food samples and
get a hold of the latest trends in cuisine
that adhere to Jewish dietary law.
As one might expect, bagels and lox,
a broad selection of cold cuts and a
variety of pickles were on display. But
the old staples were clearly fighting
for prominence with a smorgasbord
of new offerings that either borrowed
from international cuisines, like the
Japanese or Italians, or offered observ-
ers of kashrut a small taste of what
dietary law forbids, like facon, the faux
bacon.
"There's no law anywhere that a Jew
should not be allowed the flavors of
the world:' declared Alan Broner, co-
owner of Jack's Gourmet, which mar-
kets the product that won the 2012
Kosherfest award in the best meat
category.
Broner said facon was the inven-
tion of his business partner Jack
Silberstein, a graduate of the presti-
gious Culinary Institute of America,
and is made of beef plate —a fatty cut
located behind the brisket — that is
then seasoned, smoked and fried. The
result, he said, is an accurately treif-
tasting delicacy that is entirely kosher.
"The prohibition is not to have beef
baked and smoked to taste like ...,"
Broner paused as he looked for the
right word, "to taste like something
else:'
Jeffrey Rappoport, a blogger who
ate bacon before starting to eat kosher
at age 13, almost had tears in his eyes
when he took a bite.
"That's amazing!" he said, planting a
kiss of joy on Broner's head.
"The buds don't forget," responded
Broner, who had a taste for treif before
he began observing kashrut at age 30.
Not everyone was as thrilled with
facon, however.
"It's kind of bland:' said storeowner
Sandra Steiner. "I won't buy it:' She
added that she might not be the best
judge, however,
as she has been
kosher her whole
life.
Facon was just
one of the many
novelties at this
year's Kosherfest,
where innovation was clearly the name
of the game.
JoburgKosher, a company originally
from South Africa, partnered with
New York businessmen to bring a taste
of their homeland — bilatong, a dried
meat similar to beef jerky, and boere-
wors, a type of Boer sausage — to the
U.S. market.
"It tastes like dried pastrami:'
said Benny Goldis, a local partner
of JoburgKosher, putting it in terms
local Jews would understand. "People
can take bilatong on vacation or on
business trips. It's a new food I'm sure
people will love:'
Even the oldest names in the Jewish
food industry like Manischewitz are
acutely aware that palates are becom-
ing increasingly sophisticated and
demanding as part of a global trend.
That's why the company, which is
associated with foods like matzah,
farfel and kosher wine, launched
a new line this year that includes
Moroccan roasted vegetables and
chicken couscous sauces, red velvet
macaroons and Mediterranean gefilte
fish, "with flavors of rosemary, orega-
no and olive oil:'
But those worried food fads are
destroying authentic Jewish cooking
need not worry. At the fair, there were
still plenty of traditionalists ready to
make sure old favorites would not die
out.
Steve Leibovitz, the owner of United
Pickles, the company behind Guss'
Pickles, reigned over a big barrel of
sours, half-sours and green tomatoes,
handing them out to passersby much
the same way his grandfather, Max
Leibovitz, did when he opened up on
the Lower East Side 118 years ago. Fl
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