Cooking Farr - Three Dishes, Four Pots, One Oven

[mamadeb]

Tonight is Shabbat. Tomorrow night is Tisha B'Av. That means special food.

Menu:

Shabbat Dinner

Garlic chicken
Noodle kugel
String beans
Watermelon

I cheated with the garlic chicken, I do admit. I covered half a chicken (cut in four pieces) with garlic powder and put in a hot oven.

Shabbat Lunch:

Asian Orange-Beef Salad

Orange Beef strips
Lettuce
Scallions
Peppers
cherry tomatoes
Orange wedges
Chinese noodles
dressing of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, vegetable oil and sesame oil, with garlic powder and sesame seeds

Orange Beef - browned pepper steaks in vegetable oil and braised with the juice and grated rind of one orange, plus soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame seeds, sesame oil, ground ginger (couldn't find fresh) and garlic powder. Still braising. When done (when liquid is gone), will cool and cut into strips.

Pre-fast meal:
Sarah's Pasta (Slice garlic thinly. Cook in hot olive oil until brown. Add contents of one can of salmon. Add a touch of vinegar and some pepper. Meanwhile cook bowtie noodes (except I couldn't find them this time and used rotelli instead - any short pasta will do) and drain over frozen peas. Mix. Chill.)
Watermelon and banana

I've served Sarah's Pasta as a preTisha B'av meal for years now. It's just part of the tradition. Leftovers become the post-fast meal.

Comments

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, and no offence meant, what is Tisha B'Av? What is it a celebration of? What do you do during it? Other than eat food that makes my mouth water, of course.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Always glad to answer questions.

Tisha B'Av means "The Ninth of Av" - the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, which is July/August. On that day, both Temples - the one King Solomon built and its replacement - were destroyed. (Also the date of the Expulsion from Spain, which is not a coincidence.) It's the saddest day of the Jewish calender.

We build up to it by a period of Three Weeks called, well, the Three Weeks, during which we do not have haircuts, wear new clothes or get married. It begins with a minor (daylight only) fast day. Twelve days later begins an even stricter period of mourning for Nine Days (yeah, well. We get literal.)

No swimming. No clean clothes. (I went to a bris on Tuesday. Everyone was exceptionally well-dressed. Why? Because they were all wearing the clothes they'd worn on Shabbos.)No bathing for reasons other than hygiene. No nail cutting. Men don't shave. No live music. No unnecessary travel. No meat or wine.

The exception to this is Shabbat, because there is no mourning on Shabbat. We don't swim or bathe on Shabbat anyway, but we can prepare for it, and we can eat meat and drink wine.

Sunday is Tisha B'av, but in the Jewish calendar, days begin at nightfall. It's an all-day fast - one of two. Fast means fast - no food, no water. Also, no leather shoes, no bathing, no "annointing" and no sex. And, special for Tisha B'Av, no greetings - no hellos or goodbyes. And we sit in low chairs or the ground.

Other observances - on the night, we listen to a reading of the book of Lamentations and say piyutim, which are dirges. In the morning, we go to shul, which is weird because normally, for a weekday service, men wear their prayer shawls and phylacteries, but NOT this morning. They wear them for the afternoon service, which they never do otherwise. There's the morning service and then there are more dirges - at least one commemorating the Holocaust and one for the victims of the First Crusade as well as those for the Temples. You spend the morning basically in tears. Some places - ours - explicates the piyutim to make them more powerful. Then we go home. Various synagogues might have special classes. As normal Torah study is forbidden, they're on the permitted subjects (the Temples, mostly. And the Messiah. And the book of Lamentations.) Since "work" is permitted, they might also be webcast.

Men go to shul in the afternoon to pray with their prayershawls and phylacteries. Women feed the underage kids and get dinner prepared. Dinner must be dairy because the Temple burned until noon the next day. Twenty-five hours after the fast starts, it ends.

(Things vary. Two years ago, it was so extremely hot that I was forbidden to fast; last year I got stitches in my knee and spent the day in bed, not moving my leg.)


The food is because tomorrow is Shabbat and we want yummy food.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Wow. You have the most interesting religion. I remember thinking when I was in RE, that if I could believe in god, I'd probably want to be Jewish. That and if I could give up bacon, of course ;)
Thank you so much for the explanation. I need to do some more background reading on the Jewish faith. (bye-bye more spare time. This interest is consuming more and more of my life)

[zsero.livejournal.com]

The expulsion from Spain took effect on the 7th of Av, two days before Tish'a B'av. Close, but not exact.

[geekosaur]

It's not s celebration; it's a fast commemorating the destruction of the Temples (tradition has it that both were destroyed on the same day, the 9th of Av (Tisha b'Av)). Another tradition has it that you have an especially festive meal before the start of any fast.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

No, you don't. You have an especially festive meal before Yom Kippur because it's a yomtov and you're supposed to have a festive meal on Yom Tov. Since you can't eat on Y"K, you have it just before.

You have an especially *gloomy* meal before T"BA - two items of food, garnished with ashes. Traditionally,it's a hardboiled egg and bread. However, as that's not enough food for a fast day, you have a real meal before hand, and then the gloomy one. And since tomorrow's Shabbat, you do no mourning practices at all.