A confession:  I’ve always had mixed feelings about the food of my tribe.  As a child, I watched my Italian friends dine on deep dishes of all the things I deemed essential to a well-lived life:  pasta, cheese, cured meats, and drool-inducing combinations of all three. As for me, I suffered through Jewish holiday meals filled with a mix of foods that could be best described as “interesting”.  How did my ancestors get it so wrong?

But perhaps my tastes have changed.  Sitting around the Rosh Hashanah dinner table this week, I realized that I needed to do a reassessment of sorts.   So I sat down to consider all of the foods I deemed a part of a typical modern Jew’s culinary template. Turns out I’ve underestimated our contribution to the epicurean world.  Then again, to be completely honest, some of our food continues to be just plain nasty.

So here goes, my personal ranking of Jewish foods, from worst to first.  Keep in mind two things:

1. Taste is always subjective, your own experience and palate may be completely different from mine, I’m sure your bubbe made a fantastic version of this, and I completely respect your opinion.
2. You’re wrong and I’m right.

 

40) PICKLED HERRING IN SOUR CREAM

Read those words again, slowly.  Now look at the image. It sounds awful from the get-go and looks even worse.  As for the taste…I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would eat this.  A white, gloopy pile of mush, with the added bonus of a fishy aftertaste that won’t leave your mouth for a week.  Should be served only as a punishment. Just the worst.

39) KISHKE

What Jews apparently invented when they couldn’t figure out how to make an Italian sausage.  You think it’s meat, but it’s really some kind of weird stuffing soaked in fat and stuffed into an intestine.  Whether it’s called Kishke or Stuffed Derma (we really could use a branding expert with some of our food names), I don’t get it. Continue reading