Spice and Spirit

As you might have guessed, my books are cherished and I do not part with them easily. Cookbooks especially so. I actually have a decent size collection with a special cabinet to store them. But today I’m going to tell you about the time I sold one. You see, I’d accidentally wound up with two copies of Spice and Spirit by Tzuvia Emmer and Tziporah Reitman. As I prepared to move out for college I purchased one for myself, and unbeknownst to me my mother did too. I put the extra book up on a resale site (remember, I was a broke college student) but I couldn’t really bear to part with it, so I listed it for a ridiculous amount of money. And then a month later someone bought it. 

Now why was this person willing to pay an obscene amount of money for one cookbook, and why did I refuse to sell them my second copy when they offered even more money for it? Well, Spice and Spirit is kind of a classic and it had gone temporarily out of print right after I bought it. There’s a reason my mother and I both thought it was important to have a copy of my own in my apartment. This book has literally been gifted by scores of Ashkenazi women to their daughters as they got married, or to any relative when they moved out on their own for the first time. I knew it would come back in print (you can easily buy it now for about $35 American), but I didn’t want to go even a few months without it. Neither did the mystery purchaser who said their daughter was getting married in a week. The second copy would have gone to their niece in a similar situation. 

Why? Why is a cookbook which doesn’t even have pictures such a hot ticket? Why does it continue to sell even thirty years after publication?

Before the recipe sections, there is a thorough explanation of Jewish Asheknazi customs including things that only come up once a year and thus can easily be forgotten – like whether we make one or two blessings over the candles on the second day of Sukkot and Passover. Albeit, from a largely Lubavitch perspective. I grew up in a religious household. I was taught these things in school. My mother had learned them at her mother’s knee. Still we always felt the need to double check in the book. I still sometimes do, and the nostalgia of that, the connection to so many women who have used the same text for this exact reason across generations, is not something I’m willing to put a price tag on. So I kept my book. I do not regret it. 

Now, I mentioned the book does not have photos – it was conceived and printed before the days of kosher cookbooks with full page glossy food photos- but it does contain really useful sketches of techniques, including different ways to braid and shape challah. They are easy to follow, and produce a great result. Spice and Spirit is also is jam packed full of traditional and modern Ashkenazi recipes. My copy has a sticky note in the front cover where I have written, in extremely cramped handwriting, all the recipes other people have told me are tried and true. It grows so fast I have added a second one and I’m still working my way through it. So which ones can I personally recommend? The mushroom barley soup is simple but delicious. I make it all the time and it never disappoints. The black and white cookies are fairly fool proof, and the variety of kugels is unmatched. 

I knew the laws of kashrut inside and out when I first got my own kitchen, but I had relatively little experience actually cooking. My mother didn’t enjoy it much (something I learned later and still laugh about given the discovery that I do enjoy it quite a bit). This book taught me the ropes.. And it did so with some simple pencil drawings and no nonsense recipes that avoided what we called “patchke” (a million ingredients, steps, and gadgets and pans that will later need to be washed). It’s a stalwart of Ashkenaz cooking and can also be enjoyed by Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews – or non Jews – who enjoy Ashkenaz food. To me these recipes taste like home. 

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