Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Is Baeckeoffe (Baeckeoffa) Cholent (Schalet, טשאָלנט)?

I have put a recipe for Baeckeoffe at Best of Many Alsatian Specialties is a Mixed Meat and Vegetable Casserole. It comes from an article that Roy Andries de Groot wrote for an early 1980s edition of the Chicago Tribune.

Whenever I read it, I always think of  cholent or -- more properly -- the German Jewish version called Schalet, which is discussed in Heinrich Heine and EAAZI.

Lindy disagrees in Hey, Back off!, but I suspect she is unfamiliar with Schalet.

From descriptions that I have read in responsa (teshuvot, תשובות, the Jewish equivalent of Islamic fatawa, فتاوى) and other Jewish documents from before the 20th century, the practice of bringing a cholent pot to the bakery to keep warm was rather common among German Jews and Eastern European ethnic Ashkenazim in the past.

Uncooked vegetable cholent.


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