School Blog

This week in our Culture and Cuisine class, we learned about the Polish Jews.  We researched their history, and found that the first Jews settled in Poland in the 10th century, from Moorish countries.  Most of them were merchants.  By the beginning of the 20th century, most of the world's Jews lived in Poland (@75%), many in professional work at this time.  When the Nazi occupation occurred, there were over 3,000,000 Jews in Poland.  90% of Polish Jews were killed in the death camps of the Holocaust.

We learned about some of the food that the Polish Jews ate, many recipes being filled dough dishes like knaidlach, kreplach, blintzes or knishes.  We also found that many Polish people baked a variety of dough recipes like bialys with a savory filling, or babkas with sweet ingredients.  Polish Jews also made things like gefilte fish and other smoked fishes.  We decided to make kugel.  Even though kugel originated in Germany in the 12th century, probably from travelers along the Silk Trail, it was adapted in many eastern European countries.  The Polish style of kugel often added sweet ingredients like curd cheeses, raisins and cinnamon.  Our recipe included sour cream, cream cheese, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon!

We are looking forward to further exploring Polish cuisine with one more recipe before moving on to the next Jewish culture!

Kugel Recipe to try for yourself.