A PEOPLE TOO INURED TO SUFFERING:

The Kugel Conundrum (Josh Ozersky, Apr. 28, 2011, TIME)

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.

These and other, worse, foods are all part of the Jewish-American food canon.

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