While I grew up eating honey cooked carrots every Rosh Hashana, I never realized this was holy food until I read Rabbi Dovid Meisel’s account of the every day life of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the previous Satmar Rebbe. In case you’re unfamiliar with his story, the old Satmar Rebbe walked out of Bergen Belsen alive. He moved first to Jerusalem and later to Williamsburg, Brooklyn where he was a surrogate father to ,thousands of orphaned Holocaust survivors . Today the community he founded numbers in the hundreds of thousands .The upstate New York shtetl, the Rebbe’s own word for the town, Kiryas Yoel is named in his memory.
Because he was one of the few Rabbis to openly oppose Zionism, the Satmar Rebbe was misunderstood and often maligned. Brilliant, fascinating, witty and extremely sensitive to the needs of others, the Rebbe was among the holiest Jews of recent times. For more, read Rabbi Meisel’s biography called “The Rebbe” .
As a foodie, what struck me was the Rebbe’s practice of eating honeyed carrots,, Mehren he called it using the Yiddish word not only at Rosh Hashana but though the entire fall holiday season . Why? Does the favorite vegetable of Bugs Bunny have some esoteric, mystical meaning ? Perhaps, The book doesn’t say.
I suspect the practice is related to the fact that carrots are a symbolic food. In Hebrew a carrot is a gezer a homonym for geziera,which means evil decree. When we eat carrots on Rosh Hashana night. we ask G-d to rescind evil decrees. The vegetable’s Yiddish name mehren means increase, as in increase our merits and our money.
Food historian Gil Marks says that because Medieval carrots were golden colored, carrot rounds actually looked like gold coins., hence the custom of eating them at the New Year as an omen for prosperity .
This is an old family recipe. My Satmar born but non Chassidic mother says that in Satmar everyone ate this dish. My mother calls it tzimmes. It’s very easy to make, very sweet and apparently very holy too. Enjoy
12 medium sized carrots peeled and sliced into rounds
2 T oil
2 T flour
1/3 to 1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup water
Combine oil and flour over medium flame mixing until they bind together in a roux.
Add carrots water and honey
Cook together on low flame until soft (about 1/2 hour)
