During the dark ages before kosher sushi, marble cake was a fixture at the Shabbat morning after services kiddush. I haven’t been able discover why. I suspect the reason is that marble cake slices well and can be laid out easily and attractively on trays without too much fussing. It also goes well with the traditional kiddush libation-a tiny shot glass of whiskey.
By the way, marble has nothing to do with the old fashioned kiddie game. It refers to the dark veins shot through the cake yellow sponge which resembles the veins marble stone. Today the veins are flavored with chocolate but in the old days before chocolate was widely eaten the veins were made of a combination of mollasses and spice.
Sadly, homemade marble cake has become a forgotten treat. That is because commercial bakers have coopted the recipe and turned it into a pale replica of its former self. But this recipe, which comes from South Africa where many Lithuanian Jews settled and cooked traditional fare is delightful. It comes from my ex neighbor Shoshana Levy, who is a professional harpist and a wonderful baker
Magical Marvelous Marble Cake
Seven eggs separated
3 cups of flour (use white or whole wheat pastry flour)
2 1/2 cups of sugar (use white)
3/4 cup of oil
1 and 1/2 cups of water
4 level teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 tbsp best quality cocoa
Preheat oven to 350 F or 175 C

Beat the egg whites until stiff
Combine flour, baking powder and salt
Beat egg yolks, water and oil together. Add in the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt.

Gently incorporate the egg whites

Remove a cup of the batter and combine with a tablespoon of cocoa
Pour
Coat a bundt pan or a tube pan with non stick cooking spray. Also spray one thin loaf pan and or a few cup cake holders to accomodate any left over batter. This is a big cake. When I made it the batter produced enough to fill one standard sized bundt pan, one thin loaf pan and three cupcake.
Pour in batter alternating between the yellow and the chocolate batters. Gently insert a knife into the batter to create swirls
Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out dry
Freezes well. Serves 16
Variation
If you leave out the chocolate this is a wonderful sponge cake on it’s own.

Way, way back in history, before brisket of beef and roast chicken were even invented there was the meat pie. In his authoratitive history of Jewish “Eat and Be Satisfied,” John Cooper says that this in Central and Eastern Europe a meat pie called a pastide was the Friday night entre of choice. The pastide was a kind of pot pie, a crust on the bottom, a crust on the top and a meat filling. This structure was a memorial to the Manna, the miraculous food that sustained the Jews through their forty years of desert wanderings. According to it’s biblical description the manna was sandwiched in between to layers of dew. In the pastide the dough stands in for the dew and the meat for the manna. Then and now, meat which is called basar in Hebrew was a preferred Shabbat food, it’s letters adding up to the number seven which symbolizes the Sabbath.
Compared to a steak or a roast, this recipe involves a relatively small quantity of meat.Though Medieval Europe was heavily carniverous, anti Semitic Eccestiastical decrees which banned non Jews from purchasing Jewish meat impacted on the availabitity of kosher meat. To be certified as kosher, an animal must be free of blemishes, even relatively minor ones. As such the kosher meat market depends on a secondary market of non Jews who are willing to purchase meat that is fit to eat but for one reason or another doesn’t cut it as kosher. In Islamic countries this market was vigorous but in Christian countries, Ecclesiastical decrees often elminated this market and consequently drove up the price of kosher meat. By the 16th century, there was almost no kosher meat in Europe at all and Jews started raising chicken and other fowl.
By the Jews stopped eating meat pies and moved on to chicken and goose.
As I’ve been unable to track down the original recipe what follows is an adaptation based on “From My Grandmother’s Kitchen, ” A Sephardic cookbook combined by Vivian Alchech Miner.
Alchech Miner’s anscestors came from the Balkan countries and her cuisine reflects a blend of Turkish, Greek, Bulgarian and Roumanian influences.
Meat Pastel (Savory Meat Pie) While Miner’s pie is delicious-it’s a really yum recipe. this isn’t quite authentic.Though the Romans made a flour egg and oil dough it wasn’t for eating but rather as a case for meat or other fillings. Remember that premodern sanitation was severely lacking and encasing the food in dough was a way of keeping in clean. In the middle ages meat pies were made of a whole wheat or rye pastry-sometimes combined with shortening which for the Jews probably meant shmaltz or rendered chicken fat. Instead of chopped meat they were filled with other sorts of meat including (yes, strange but true) udder.
Pastry
3 cups of flour
3/4 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup hot water
1/2 tsp salt
Mix together by hand or machine into a ball of soft dough.
Cover with a tea towel and set aside for 20 minutes. During that time make the filling
Filling
One lb or 500 grams of ground beef
One large onion diced
1/2 teaspoon of cilantro or parsley chopped fine (optional)
1 clove of fresh garlic diced fine
2 tablespoons of sweet red wine or water
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil
Saute onions and garlic together until translucent
Add the meat, breaking it up into small crumbs. Cook until brown. Add salt, pepper and cilantro or parsley the meat.
In a separate bowl combine the egg, the flour and the wine. Combine together and add to the meat
Cover a medium sized pan (round or rectangular) with cooking spray
Divide the dough into half.
Press into the pan using your fingers.
Add meat on top
Working on a floured surface roll out the remaining half of the dough and lay it on top of the meat. (this is tricky to do perfectly. You may want to enlist a help to help you pick up the dough and lay it smoothly over the meat)
Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle sesame seeds. With the tines of a fork make air holes and bake at 350 F or 180 C until brown (about 50 minutes) Delicious and freezes well.

Of all the cholents, the slow cooking Sabbath stews, Adafina is my favorite. Adafina which is also called t’fina, dafina or simply Hamin which is a generic term for hot Shabbos food is the North African Sabbath stew . Unlike the Ashkenazi cholent, in this variation, the elements of the cholent are cooked separately in cheesecloth bags or in oven safe roasting bags The result is a marvel. Out of a single pot emerges a a complex and multi part feast, like a warm mezze in one pot.
Food historian Gil Marks relates the stew’s name Adafina to the Hebrew “dafina” which means to force into a groove. Marks says that in medieval times the Adafina pot was literally inserted into a groove as the pot was buried in an ember covered hole in the ground . No one does this anymore. Today, Adafina is made in a slow cooker, an oven or on a covered gas stove,known in Yiddish as a blech.
This recipe comes from Rifka Cohen, the sister of my assistant Batya Lieberman. It serves a huge crowd and the subtle mixture of spices results in a dish that is both aromatic and exceptionally delicious.
One to two large onions diced
Three to four pounds of beef and beef bones
1/2 cup chickpeas
1/2 cup of white beans or mixed red and white beans
2 medium sized potatoes
2 medium sized sweet potatoes
One cup rice
One cup whole wheat and/or one cup of barley (I like whole wheat better)
Salt, pepper, turmeric, nutmeg, cinnamon, paprika and cayenne pepper.
3 whole eggs raw in their shells.
Cooking oil or olive oil for frying
Three oven proof roasting bags or cheesecloth bags
Water to cover
Fry the onion until it is golden. Cut the beef into chunks and fry together with the onions.
After the beef is browned, add chickpeas and beans, potatoes and sweet potatoes. Add the spice to taste. Here are some approximate ratios. One teaspoon of salt and turmeric. 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. Pinch of nutmeg, pinch of pepper and cayenne pepper. Taste to adjust seasonings.
In a separate bowl mix together the (uncooked) rice, shredded sweet potato and diced onion. one cup of rice, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of cumin, pinch of nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, one teaspoon of salt. pinch of pepper. Add two teaspoons of oil and two cups of water. Insert everything into a tightly tied ovenproof baking bag, Pinch a few small holes into the bag and put it into the pot.
Do the same for the wheat and barley.
Put everything into a huge pot or crockpot and cover with water . Add several whole eggs in their shells. These will be the slow cooked huevos haminadoes, the cholent eggs.
Cook everything together on low heat for 12 hours.
Open the roasting bags into separate bowls and serve each separately.
Serves 12.

For centuries, Sephardic women have been baking a bread called the the Siete Cielos in honor of Shavuot. In Ladino Siete Cielos means the seven heavens. This refers to a teaching about how the seven celestial spheres opened up when G-d gave the Torah on Mount Sinai. Ladino is a blend of Hebrew and Spanish which was the language of the Jews of Turkey, Greece, and parts of Morroco.

Here’s a picture.
I discovered this Challah from Nicholas Stavroulakis’s wonderful “cookbook of the Jews of Greece.” He drew a lovely picture and offered instructions which I attempted to copy.
The orb at the center which is roughly the size of a smallish Challah represents Mount Sinai . Around it are seven rings-made from ropes of dough-to represent the seven heavens (sheva rakiyim in Hebrew). On top of them are small dough sculptures representing Miriams well, the 10 Commandments, an open Torah scroll, a dove ( a symbol of the Jewish people) and Moses’ copper serpent (nachas nehoset).

This is what it looked like when I took it out of the oven.

Tinted Eggs
Believe it or not coloring eggs is a Jewish custom, though our color scheme doesn’t include pink, lilac or lime green. Lag B’Omer is the 33rd day of the Omer count between Passover and Shavuot. On L’ag B’Omer the fatal plague infecting Rabbi Akiva’s students ended. L’ag B’Omer is also the yahrzeit or anniversary of the death of Rabbi Akiva’s greatest student Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. This day is a holiday day because after his death, Rabbi Shimon’s soul rose toexquisitely sublime levels of holiness.
The midrash says that Rabbi Shimon’s righteousness sustained his whole generation to the point that a rainbow never appeared in the sky for all the years he lived.
The Torah tells us that a rainbow is a reminder of G-d’s promise not to destroy the world. When a rainbow appears, it is a sign that G-d needs to recall that promise because mankind hasn’t been behaving properly. But while Rabbi Shimon was alive, G-d never needed a reminder.
After his death, Jews tinted the shells of hard boiled eggs, the traditional mourner’s food, in colors to remember this. Their rainbow was relatively limited—the Jews used onion skins and tea grounds as their dye and the eggs were various shades of reddish brown.
Some Jews abandoned this custom because of its resemblance to Easter eggs. Easter has bad associations for Jews because so many pogroms and anti-Semitic attacks took place during this holiday. If your family doesn’t already follow this custom, you may want to think twice before adopting it.My Rabbi isn’t so sure that it is a good idea. But if you’re curious about how to dye eggs naturally, here’s how.
Tinted eggs.
Hard boil eggs in the usual way. Put plenty of onion skins—red and brown and tea grounds into the cooking water. Eggs will take on a reddish-brown tint.

While Ashkenazim spent the night after Pesach packing up the Pesach dishes, Morrocan Jews have a party called Mimouna. They have been doing this for centuries though no one is really sure why. Unlike most holidays, Mimouna doesn’t appear in any books of Jewish law and it’s celebrated only by Jews of Morroccans and North African ancestry-Syrians don’t do Mimouna; neither do Litvaks or Hungarians.
Scholars point out that since the day coincides with the Yarhrzeit of Maimon, the father of Moses the Son of Maimon (Moses Maimonedes or the Rambam) the feast honors his death-and passage to the next world. (the day of death is a “birthday” of sorts as the soul moves on to another level in it’s journey) The word Mimouna even sounds like a contraction of hiloula and Maimon.
There are others who say that Mimouna comes from Emuna which means faith and that the day is a celebration of faith. In fact the entire Pesach holiday which commemorates the Jewish people’s giant leap of faith following the unseen G-d into the desert without packing sandwiches is the consumate holiday of faith. The mystics say that faith energy is in the air at Pesach time and that if we plug in we can recharge our faith battery for the entire year so maybe Mimouna connects to that.
In old Morrocco the Arabs visited their Jewish neighbors bringing gifts of sourdough starter. Because sourdough, which was the premodern and more natural form of yeast is hametz incarnate the Jews discard theirs before Pesach .This gift helped them start their post Pesach baking. In the traditional blessing is “tirbachu u’tis’adu”, Morrocan or Judeo-Arabic meaning be

blessed and have a good luck,” .
The first dish the Jews would make was a leavened pancake called Mufleta. Mufleta is flatbread, similar in taste and texture to Indian chappati. It is very tasty, especially when topped with honey or slathered with a honey butter mixture and not at all complicated to make once you get the hang of it.
Mufleta—enough for 12 pancakes.
3 and ½ cups of flour
½ tablespoon yeast
½ tablespoon salt
½ tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup of vegetable oil (approximately)
1 and ½ cups lukewarm water
1. Dissolve yeast in water. Add sugar. Combine flour and salt. Mix in flour gradually and knead until you’ve got a soft batter.
2.Pour about a tablespoon of oil on top of the batter so that it is covered by a thin film of oil. It should look shiny
3.Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let it rest for an hour
4. Cut the dough into 12 pieces. Each piece should be about the size of a medium sized apple.
5. Let the dough balls rest for 10 minutes
6. Create an oiled work surface. You can pour a thin film of oil on top (about a tablespoon)directly onto a granite countertop or a marble cutting board. Using the palms of your hands work the ball into a thin pancake (it may break in places—that doesn’t really matter
7. Heat up a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan. Slide the first pancake into the hot pan.
8. Cook until it starts to brown on one side and the flip the pancake over (it should take about a minute to brown)
9.The layer the next pancake on top.
10. Flip the pancake tower over so that the new pancake is touching the surface of the frying pan. When it browns flip over and layer a new pancake on top. Flip until brown and then layer a new pancake. Keep on doing this until your dough balls are finished. In the end you will have created a tower of mufletot, one on top of the other.
If you can , get two people on the job. One person can stretch the dough into pancakes. The other can supervise the cooking and flipping. In a pinch one person can do the entire job.
Separate the pancakes—they should come apart easily and serve right away with silan, melted butter, melted butter mixed with honey or jam. Though the tradition is to have them with something sweet they can work well with a savory dip too.