On the Chocolate Trail

On the Bread Trail serves up explorations of heritage Jewish breads. Puffy yeast doughs, as expansive and mysterious as the survival of the Jewish people, mix with Jewish celebrations to yield surprising and diverse treats for all seasons. Feed your family and friends from the spirit and creativity of our ancestors through their migrations and adaptations when you dig into these diverse bread stories. It will include several historical and contemporary global recipes.

The book had its start as the chocolatebabkaproject, a search for the best chocolate babka. Along the way I found that many cultures enjoy similar yeasty, celebratory treats with shared sources or ancestry, what I have started calling “cognate bread cakes.” These special occasion, often egg-rich loaves reflect a diversity that is at once distinct and also universal. In non-Jewish traditions they might include korovai, kulich, pandora, panettone, and more. In a Jewish setting, they extend beyond my family’s Ashkenazi (Central European)-centered menu to include Sabbath and holiday breads from Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.

I have prepared and dipped happily into Shabbat breads such as Moroccan khobz, Ethiopian dabo, along with Yemenite saluf and lachuch. It has been fun decorating an Ethiopian special occasion pan-bread called ambusha, a shlissel or key challah for the Sabbath following Passover, and an elaborate 7 heaven (Los Siete Cielos) challah of Salonica for Shavuot. Oh, the scent of fenugreek, coriander, orange zest, and other spices waft from my oven, the fluff of warm bread in my mouth. I had underestimated the comfort of that multi-sensory blanket enfolding me.

In a Joseph Campbell sense these are heroic foods, voyagers through time and space, from home to home, from generation to generation, victoriously returning to festive tables season after season.