Inda and her mother, Susan, smell the goodness of the Babka just pulled from the oven.

From Fast to Feast

Everyone should have a Jewish friend, who invites them to share feast days. This week, my friend, Inda, invited me to break the 25 hour fast associated with Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holidays, by sharing a meal with her family and friends. Happily, she invited me to the feast part, not the fast. 🙂

Having grown up Baptist, I’m  more into feasting. In fact, Baptists likely invented the covered dish supper, an event that in many churches precedes the Wednesday night prayer meeting. Or as food writer MFK Fisher once said: “First we eat, then we do everything else.” Jesus was big on this approach as well.

Babka, an East European sweet cake (or coffee cake) is made with yeast-risen dough, that’s filled, rolled and baked. The name means “grandmother’s cake,” because it’s shape like the full skirts once worn by European grandmothers.

Breaking Bread

In the church of my youth, we couldn’t always agree on doctrine, the design of the new park lot, or which hymns to sing, but when it came to food, by golly, we were of one accord. It was the tie able to “bind our hearts in Christian love.” In the interest of feasting, women emptied their freezers of strange packages left behind by their hunter husbands: venison, dove, elk, squirrel, rabbit and an occasional mystery meat.

My Jewish friends have a saying that sums up their history and the healing that comes from breaking bread with each other: “They tried to kill us; we survived; let’s eat.”

Salmon with capers and lemon

The breakfast-like meal was one of Ashkenazi tradition, that is, of Jews from Eastern Europe.  Here is my plate with bagel, salmon, capers, cream cheese, tomatoes, onions and Babka.

Yes, shared meals forge friendships, bury anger, provoke laughter and celebrate commonality. That being the case, it’s good to eat together every chance we get.