Levantine fusion heritage food culture? [Jew-ish: A Cookbook by Jake Cohen]

100 updated classic and all-new Jewish-style recipes from a bright new star in the food community

These are not your Jewish grandmother's recipes! Jake Cohen, food writer and nice Jewish boy, has been hosting Friday night Shabbat dinners for the past few years and reinventing beloved (but sometimes outdated) recipes from his culture along the way. The result is Jew-ish, an innovative take on classic Jewish recipes that was created with the modern millennial in mind: both experienced and novice home cooks looking for elevated versions of old-school favorites. Imagine kugel turned savory with the flavors of spinach-artichoke dip and latkes dyed vibrant yellow with saffron for a Persian spin on the potato pancake, plus best-ever hybrid desserts like Macaroon Brownies and Pumpkin Spice Babka! Cooks and hosts will find helpful tips and tricks throughout, gleaned from personal stories told in a fresh voice that is uniquely Jake Cohen’s.

The best, most inviting thing about Jake Cohen's Jew-ish: A Cookbook is the way the personal stories are interspersed throughout the recipes to form a coherent, cohesive picture of the author's family life. Through this mélange of tweaked family recipes, inherited and adopted, not only are sumptuous foodie delights described in lush detail, the reader resounds with stories of ties memories and happy meetings. So that was the most interesting part of the read to me. With regards to the food, it was rich. 

A lot of oil, a lot of specialty products, a lot of eggs, a lot of carbs - a foodie delight. Scent-images of sumac and doughnuts and cardamom; a mix of adopted flavors from across the Jewish diaspora, refined by a professional culinary palette - it was a lot. I'd like to think that I'm the spice specialist among my immediate family. I need to know how things smell before I can formulate a sense of food composition. Persian, Iraqi, Ashkenazi - across the board I got a lot of mint and bright flavors. Of course, to contrast the fragranced, lip-coating fats. So in terms of conveying the food culture, the book did a great job.

Would I recommend this book? In terms of recipes I felt super moved or interested in making myself? Few and far between. I definitely feel like baking and cooking beef again, and I'm interested in some of the spices and food staples, but the food palette was not my jam. But, would I recommend it is the question. Yes. I think there's a lot to take away from this book. Least of all, for me at least, when is the right time to share family recipes?  4 stars from me.

Jew-ish: A Cookbook is set for publication March 2021.