A Mexican Flavored New Year

The Jewish New Year is  fast approaching .It begins this Monday with traditional foods celebrating the day, with recipes handed down from Eastern European ancestors. However the next generation adds their own spin, using the ingredients and flavors of their adopted country.

This was the subject of Priya Krishna's article about Mexican -Jewish cooking in today's New York Times Food section., She focused on Fany Gershon, the owner of La Newyorkina ,a sweet, shop, and Dough, a doughnut business. Her Mexican heritage shines through in her paleta's and doughnuts  ,redolent with Mexican cocoa, chipotle and cinnamon. It stands to reason that her family recipes also have these flavors as well.As Ms. Krishna points out Jewish and Mexican cuisine couldn't be further apart but as Ms. Gershon pointed out both are very tradition rooted , very proud and very family oriented.Of course the traditional Rosh Hashanah  platter includes apples and honey to insure a sweet new year., a round challah to symbolize the circle of life , pomegranates to signify abundance and fish heads for fresh starts at the head of the year.The Mexican influences is spice added to matzoh ball soup, apple cinnamon challah and a guajillo pepper gefilte fish.

However she still needed help, especially when she threw her first New Year's dinner in New York.Ms. Gershon had to enlist the help of the New York Times  food writer, Joan Nathan., She was excited to learn that Ms. Nathan's recipes and her grandmother's weren't all that different. Over the years the dishes were honed and polished. The first night will be spent with friends at home while the second night she'll cook a Rosh Hashannah meal at her  husband's ,Daniel Ortiz de Montellano at his restaurant , La Publica in the  Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. There will be homemade challah (which kind of is shaped like her cat Leonard.), rich with apples cooked in sugar and cinnamon.Her chicken broth for the matzoh ball soup will include garlic , cilantro and white onions. She uses white ones because they "taste" like Mexico to her. Extra chicken is added to the pot because the leftovers can be used to fill tacos and enchilada. Her store, La Newyorkina will be serving honey , chile infused ice cream instead of honey cake and rugelach that 's spiked with chipotle peppers.

Family recipes are gems to be passed down. Yet there are outside influences that creep in and make them better. It is true for Mexican-Jewish cooking, a marriage of ancient cuisines.