L’Shana Tova.

What do we remember about the German-Jewish Rosh Hashanah meal? I don’t remember anything about apple with honey in my household when I was growing up. Or potato kugel. I do remember soup with matzoh balls, and roasted meat of one kind or another, and cole slaw and nudel kugel.

Nudel kugel can be called noodle pudding, because that’s what it really is, and in talking to my cousin Ann today we decided that our grandmother may have called it nudel auflauf. I say may have because, if truth be told, our memories have been diluted by divergences and cross-cultural influences, all of which get incorporated over the decades into our cooking habits and even our language. In my case I have added numerous Jewish holiday dishes from my Ukrainian mother–in-law and from the more widespread ‘American’ Jewish repertoire – which gets me back to the kugel/auflauf. My ‘American’ version includes dairy foods such as sour cream, cottage cheese and lots of eggs. But Ann and I remembered the more spartan and delicious auflauf of our Oma Emma, and it had only a few eggs, some white raisins and perhaps thinly sliced apples and a touch of sugar. Yes it had a modicum of sweetness, but was more interested in being a tender accompaniment to the roasted meat than being a sweet and rich centerpiece.

Let’s move on to dessert. Memory does not fail us when it comes to plum cake.  The most ubiquitous of German cakes or tarts is as Jewish as it is German. Everyone in Europe has always been so enthralled with the small purple summer fruits when they come in season. And here on the East Coast of the United States we also await the short season for Italian plums. I usually bake at least one plum cake every September, maybe two.  I use the short dough known in German as muerberteig, whereas some bakers prefer to make their plum cake on a yeast dough base, the hefenteig. The latter is often made in an elongated rectangular shape. Ours is always round, in an 8 or 9 inch pan. Plum cake is sweet and sour and fruity and ours has a light jelly glaze added on top. It is a harvest food, but also a bright way to inaugurate a New Year.

We are rushing to put the finishing touches on tonight’s holiday dinner and don’t have time to post the recipe – but we will post it soon! In the meantime, here is a wonderful piece posted today by Jess on Sweet Amandine about a gorgeous plum cake made with a hefenteig dough. The recipe is adapted from the brand new book My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef. 

Sonya and I are wishing you a sweet and happy New Year!