# Why is Jewish American food so terrible when so many US Jews readily appreciate fine food? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 25, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795 "2012-03-25T22:47:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/1 "2012-03-25T22:47:04Z")
This article asks the same question, but does not come to any hard conclusions. Do any dopers know why this is so? [The Kugel Conundrum](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2067923,00.html) > [@](#): > > I’m not sure how to say this without offending anybody. So I’m going to just blurt it out. Jewish food is awful. I say this with all respect. I’m Jewish myself — Joel Stein is practically a WASP next to me. But the fact has to be faced. And the question asked, isn’t there a way out of our culinary wandering in the desert? > > I’m not talking about Kosher food, which is a special department of its own. Nor am I speaking of what Jews eat in Spain, Israel, or Argentina—rich, dynamic food cultures that have entranced the world. I’m speaking of the familiar Eastern European Jewish food that most American Jews of my generation grew up eating: dry and flavorless brisket, cooked in a salty fluid of Campbell’s beef broth and Lipton onion soup mix. I’m talking about tasteless matzoh balls and aggressively bland “farmer’s cheese”; pasty, cold chopped liver with inexplicable pieces of hard boiled egg implanted in it; dense lokshon kugels, sweet noodle casseroles as unappetizing as a Christmas fruitcake; and of course, the always terrifying herring in cream sauces, a food so vile in appearance that it could turn a glutton anorexic overnight. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/2 "2012-03-25T23:06:20Z")
Bah! That guy didn’t live with Bubby, or visit Other Bubby. All of the things he mentioned CAN be made deliciously. He’s just doesn’t know the right people. I’m sorry for him. (Bubby and Other Bubby are a few generations back in my family, but I use some of their recipes) ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/3 "2012-03-25T23:11:15Z")
well if not bad, at least few as far as restaurants go. there are probably 300 chinese restaurants for every jewish restaurant - and 3/4 of the jewish restaurants are strictly delis. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/4 "2012-03-25T23:11:32Z")
The writer asked the question because his mother was a lousy cook. My family’s matzoh balls were not tasteless; they were light and fluffy with a taste of egg and chicken. Chopped liver was mixed with onions as was much like a good French pate. The others were nothing we ate, but we did have bagels and lox (breakfast heaven), and roast chicken. Further the best sandwiches and hot dogs I ever had was at an old fashioned kosher deli. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/5 "2012-03-25T23:33:56Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The writer asked the question because his mother was a lousy cook. Agreed, all the foods he mentioned can and are made wonderfully by the right cooks. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/6 "2012-03-25T23:53:40Z")
My daughter told me that everyone would want to be Jewish if they tasted the food. So, I respectfully disagree. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/7 "2012-03-26T00:41:43Z")
Eastern European Jewish food is cold climate peasant food. Is there any cold climate peasant food in the world that’s considered good food? Peasant food is minimal variety of the cheapest cuts, or the least valuable vegetables, and the cheapest grains, all drenched in fat to add taste and keep people active through harsh winters. When’s the last time you heard people rave about Polish or Ukrainian or Russian or German or Romanian or even English, Irish, or Scottish or Scandinavian cooking? Can some of it be made well? Sure. Is most of it? Hell, no. There’s nothing at all special about Jewish food. It would be weird if it was special. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/8 "2012-03-26T00:46:50Z")
If your understanding of herring or gefilte fish or whitefish salad is what comes out of a jar or plastic tub you buy from the kosher ghetto of a basic supermarket, it’s no wonder if you think they’re disgusting. And if you use Lipton onion soup mix for anything other than… something you pass as you walk by it down the soup aisle of your basic supermarket, it’s no wonder your brisket is a salty, flavorless joke. That is the laziest, silliest way of making brisket (which is not a cheap piece of meat, how you can treat it this way I do not know) I can imagine. And if you’ve only ever had a sickly sweet kugel, you’ve not lived. Grow, learn. Broccoli kugel. Onion kugel. Tsimmes kugel. Pizza kugel! Zucchini carrot and potato kugel for Pesach. I cannot WAIT for Seder and that kugel, it is ridiculously awesome. Mr. Ozersky needs to go find his eema and his bubbe and apologize. Then he needs to come stay by me for Pesach and let me feed him. I’m sad for him. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/9 "2012-03-26T01:15:10Z")
My bubbe would never think of using Lipton onion soup mix for anything! Also, you people have never had her kugel. Or her sweet-and-sour meatballs. I once made a vat of them while spending the night at my Italian boyfriend’s place; his mom loved them, and she was a culinary professional. She couldn’t remember my name, but for years afterward she apparently asked him “whatever happened to that Jewish girl? You know, the one who could cook?” ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/10 "2012-03-26T01:20:56Z")
Vietnamese food is the same way. There are plenty of really good Vietnamese restaurants, but they’re good because they’ve partially “Americanized” and “Franco-fied” their dishes. The authentic stuff is rather off-putting, presumably because its designed more about poor peasant villagers maximizing the protein they can get out of limited sources then about good eats. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/11 "2012-03-26T01:45:30Z")
In short, American Jews developed a culture of food connoisseurship only **AFTER** many of them had assimilated into upper-middle-class American society. The majority of original Eastern European Jewish immigrants to the US did not have a tradition of international gourmet cuisine. What they had, as other posters have noted, was a fairly typical non-elite Northern European diet with some modifications to accommodate Jewish traditions and dietary laws. Like any other regionally and culturally limited traditional diet, it tended to be reliably tasty in the hands of a good cook and boring or unappealing when dished up by a bad one. Some of those Jewish immigrants were good cooks and passed down their techniques and recipes to later generations, which is why some traditional Jewish food is good. Others were indifferent cooks, in either or both senses of the word, and joined in the midcentury American trend of cutting corners on culinary practice with commercially manufactured ingredients or prepared foods, which is why some traditional Jewish food is bad. The more cosmopolitan American Jews who became enthusiasts of the elite cuisines of Tuscany or Normandy or Japan or Mexico tended to drift away from a focus on traditional Jewish food (there are only so many meals you can eat in a week, after all), so their passion for _la gourmandise_ didn’t exert much influence on American Jewish cooking in general. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/12 "2012-03-26T01:48:54Z")
Call me a peasant, but a garlic bagel with [sable](http://www.zabars.com/zabars-smoked-sable/211001Q,default,pd.html) and cream cheese is one of the most delicious things in the world. I’d rather have that than a fancy quiche or crepe any day. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/13 "2012-03-26T01:58:46Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Call me a peasant, but a garlic bagel with [sable](http://www.zabars.com/zabars-smoked-sable/211001Q,default,pd.html) and cream cheese is one of the most delicious things in the world. I’d rather have that than a fancy quiche or crepe any day. Point. The traditional Jewish foods that a majority of American Jews (including the foodie-inclined ones) actually eat **frequently** , such as bagels, kosher dill pickles, etc., tend to be pretty readily available in high-quality form. As for traditional dishes such as kasha and kugel and matzoh ball soup, which the typical Jewish foodie eats maybe once or twice a year at family get-togethers, there’s not much incentive for coming up with gourmet versions of them. That said, I do know some foodie Jews who really work hard at making holiday meals that are both traditional and gourmet-quality (and yes, you bet I do my level best to cadge invitations to seders at their place!). But to be honest, the way they achieve that is usually by turning to Sephardic versions of traditional Jewish dishes or close approximations to them from other Asian cuisines, rather than by adapting standard Eastern European/Ashkenazi recipes. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/14 "2012-03-26T02:21:43Z")
During the time period the author seems to be referring to, American food was pretty abysmal all around. Tuna casserole, beans and weenies, ham loafs, ground beef skillet dinners, overcooked roasts, Swanson’s TV dinners, jello salads, etc. Once tastes began changing around the 80’s, Jewish as well as all American foods began improving drastically. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/15 "2012-03-26T02:23:08Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Call me a peasant, but a garlic bagel with [sable](http://www.zabars.com/zabars-smoked-sable/211001Q,default,pd.html) and cream cheese is one of the most delicious things in the world. I’d rather have that than a fancy quiche or crepe any day. Mmmm…ditto! Make that a pumpernickel bagel for me, though. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/16 "2012-03-26T03:39:43Z")
I’m not Jewish, but matzoh balls, herring in cream sauce, chopped liver – all pretty damned good stuff in my book. Not every cuisine has to be spiced to hell and back to be good. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/17 "2012-03-26T03:53:23Z")
Now while my Bubbie’s matzah balls were best used to play handball with, nothing in this world beat her home made kreplach in chicken soup. Ground the meat in the big KitchenAid with the grinder, mixed the dough herself. Oy. Heaven on earth. My wife and I argue over whether or not Matzah Brie is sweet or savory, a pancake or scrambled. Don’t eat hers, it’s wrong. 😉 There is lousy French food and great French food and crappy Jewish food and great Jewish food. But one does have to remember that what Americans consider Jewish food is culinary Klezmer, a bunch of old Eastern European foods run through a Jewish filter, meaning adapted to particular dietary laws, previously acquired tastes, and other culinary influences picked up along the way. Then held as the traditional food forever more simply because it was what those who immigrated were used to cooking at that particular time. You want some _variety_ of Jewish food check out [Claudia Roden’s “The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York”](http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Jewish-Food-Samarkand/dp/0394532589/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332733737&sr=8-1). It really aint all kugel and brisket bubbeleh. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/18 "2012-03-26T04:23:30Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Call me a peasant, but a garlic bagel with [sable](http://www.zabars.com/zabars-smoked-sable/211001Q,default,pd.html) and cream cheese is one of the most delicious things in the world. You really had me worried there. I didn’t know there is a fish called sable. I thought you were putting some of [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable) on your bagel. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/19 "2012-03-26T04:24:02Z")
I lived down the street from [The Bagel](http://www.bagelrestaurant.com/) for a decade. I’m not Jewish, but I sampled pretty much everything on the menu over those years, and loved every bit of it. Especially the [Mish Mash Soup delivery](http://www.bagelrestaurant.com/site/epage/2412_205.htm) whenever I was sick! It’s certainly not a kosher place, but definitely serving everything considered traditional in a traditional way, far as I can tell. Great place, highly recommend to anyone visiting Chicago - even if you just sample the wonderful chicken broth with the enormous matzo ball. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795/20 "2012-03-26T04:32:56Z")
> [@](#): > > When’s the last time you heard people rave about Polish … cooking? If we’re including pierogis, pretty recently. Kielbasa is pretty good, too. But anyone who thinks Jewish food is no good has never heard of a deli. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jewish-american-food-so-terrible-when-so-many-us-jews-readily-appreciate-fine-food/616795.md?page=2)