Getting Down with Gefilte Fish
I'll always remember my grandmother making gefilte fish. Although most every Jewish family of northern and Eastern European origin will have its preference, the reality is that gefilte fish is about almost everything other than the variety of fish it's made from. Literally, these little rounds of poached fish — usually with spicy horseradish served alongside — are about celebration, prestige, regional roots, legal codes, poverty, superstition and the spirit of generosity.

There's an old Jewish saying: "Without fish, there is no Sabbath." This was applied to all the big holidays, including Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover; my grandmother most certainly made it for all of the big holidays and, on occasion, for our weekly Sabbath dinner on Friday night as well. Fish meant celebration. Fish was also thought to be exempt from the evil eye, to bring good luck, and, per my grandmother's admonition, to help with better brain development.

Regional rivalries came into play as well. Galitzianer Jews (from the Polish region of Galicia and west of there) generally make theirs on the sweeter side. Litvaks (or Lithuanian Jews, like my grandmother) and other communities to the east, (like my great-grandfather's family in White Russia), skipped the sugar and got out the salt and pepper. Their versions (and what we make here now) are more on the savory side of things.

Why serve gefilte fish and not work whole fish? Gefilte fish can be made in advance and made it possible to avoid cooking — which is prohibited — on the Sabbath. And, in one of those many long and legalistic Talmudic discussions, it was determined many centuries ago that pulling bones out of fish was considered to be work. "Borer," meaning "selection," (in this case separating bones from flesh) is one of the 3 dozen-plus activities that are prohibited on the Sabbath. Because it was boneless, gefilte fish was good to go. The fish, in my great grandfather's day would usually have been ground, stuffed back into the skin and poached.

The gefilte fish tradition also is rooted in the poverty of Eastern European Jewish society. Tradition dictated that everyone should have a piece of fish on the Sabbath or holidays, but of course many people couldn't afford it. Gefilte fish made it possible to serve a small piece of fish to everyone in the family.

Although I only eat it a few times a year now — when we make it at the Deli and the Roadhouse for the Jewish holidays — it's still something l look forward to. That said, there are probably as many put downs of gefilte fish as, say, something like Scottish haggis, the truth is it's actually really good, and I feel kind of defensive about it I guess, so I'll stand up for it here. I mean, if you don't like fish, then it would make sense that you might not like this. But for everyone else this would be a great dish. If you're into classical French cooking, gefilte fish is basically just the Jewish version of quenelles — fish dumplings. Mimi Sheraton calls it "Part of the holy trinity of Jewish holiday eating: chicken soup, chopped liver, gefilte fish." Start with fresh whitefish, pike, carp or other good fish, grind it, season it up a touch, and then poach in homemade fish broth — served with plenty of fresh horseradish on the side. Seriously what could be bad?

We'll have lots of it at the Deli and Roadhouse this fall for the Jewish holidays.

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