Come Hungry

I did not grow up on light foods. Chicken soup, potato kugel, and cholent can be delicious when prepped by the right hands, but they are extremely heavy. They are the foods of my shtetl ancestors, reflecting the land they were living on, their limited budgets, but also the fact that they worked off the calories during their labors. Despite our much improved economic situation and proximity to groceries since that time, salad as the main star of a meal was still a new concept for me as a teen. When my family desired a salad on the table we took some lettuce, threw on a pint of grape tomatoes, and covered the whole thing with store bought dressing. Let’s just say I was not enthused about the entire project.

Salads still found their way to me despite my lack of excitement on the subject. Lots of the other girls in high school enjoyed them, and my classmates were far more creative in both their ingredients and dressing choices. At a certain point, when every teenage girl in sight appeared to be dieting, salads became the “in” thing to eat at lunch or when going out with friends. This is rather hilarious because the billion toppings and dressings they smothered their vegetables in made the bulk of those salads anything but dietetic. Still, they were very tasty and I liked the idea of food that didn’t sit on me so heavily, even if I wasn’t particularly concerned with dieting. I began to experiment, and it turns out I had some skill at salad invention.

I get asked to prepare salads a lot these, I’m sort of known for my repertoire, so I’m always on the lookout for fun new ideas. Which is why I picked up Melisa Ben-Ishay’s Come Hungry. I had no idea the author was co-founder of Baked by Melissa. I just knew the book was jump started by a salad recipe that went viral.  I wanted to see what that story was all about and whether the salad in question lived up to the hype.

Inside, I found a colorful and appetizing array of salads as well as toasts and breads. Many of the dressing are simple, but some utilize nutritional yeast and ground nuts to give more flavor to vegan recipes. Others put a protein on top for a full meal. The very first recipe I tried was telling – braised beets. Because you can take the peasant out of the shtetl but you can’t take the shtetl out of the peasant. Nor would I want you to. I am not ashamed to love beets, and these beets were fantastic. I eat them at least once a week now. 

The dessert section also looked intriguing but I haven’t yet had the time to make most of the recipes as Passover got in the way. The ice box cakes look delightful and I’m dying to try them out. I suppose it’s a good thing it’s almost summer.

Come Hungry is not a kosher cookbook per se, but I only found one recipe that wasn’t actually kosher and it was very easily modified. In addition there are beautiful photos of Melisa’s Jewish family, including a section on cooking with kids and empowering them in the kitchen. The ethos of the title is extremely Jewish and reminds of every Jewish hostess I know. We want our guests to come hungry, so that we can feed and nourishing them. It is a way to show our love. I’m still exploring all the recipes, but I’ve decided I can’t make do with the copy I took out from the library and will be buying my own. 

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