ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What is kvass?

Five years ago Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern were friends in their 20s who missed the delicious Ashkenazi cooking that they had grown up with. They realized that traditional Jewish delis were closing, grandmothers were getting too old to cook, and that Ashkenazi cuisine was perceived as a thing of the past, if perceived as a cuisine at all. They felt that gefilte fish packaged inside a glass jar on the supermarket shelf had become the symbol of all that had gone wrong with Ashkenazi cuisine and decided to do something about it.

After much research, they began to produce and sell a gourmet gefilte fish, and then branched out and began to cook other classic Jewish foods. They have recently published a book, The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods, which contains over a hundred recipes for traditional Ashkenazi dishes, and includes stories and beautiful photography.

Liz and Jeffrey spoke with us about the Gefilteria and the Gefilte Manifesto.