Cholent

Cholent (from Eastern European Yiddish טשאָלנט tsholnt, tshoulent) or shalet (from Western European Yiddish שאלעט shalet), a food of Ashkenazi Jews, is a type of stew (or stewing) that has simmered over a very low flame or inside a slow oven (set to a low-heat temperature) or crock pot for many hours (often up to 24 hours or more) before being served on plates or in bowls on Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath). The Sephardi Jews' equivalent of cholent is known as chamin ("hot food").

In the Polish shtetls, the uncooked cholent was brought to the local baker before sunset on Fridays. He would put the mixture in his oven, which he always kept fired, and families would come by to pick up their baked cholent Saturday mornings.

Cholent is usually the hot (meaning "heated") main course of the Shabbat lunch meal served (on Saturdays after synagogue services in the morning) in very traditional Jewish homes, especially among the Orthodox. Cholent is also often served on Shabbat in synagogues at a kiddush celebration after the conclusion of the Shabbat services. It is often served at a bar or bat mitzvah reception on Shabbat or at the celebratory reception following an aufruf on Shabbat when a Jewish groom is called up to the Torah reading on the Shabbat prior to the week during which he will be married.

Shabbat food

Cholent is not usually eaten on weekdays because it is a food associated with Shabbat for a number of reasons (see below), but ready-made cholent is available in many kosher food stores (and delicatessens) where there are concentrations of traditional Jewish communities. Cholent does not freeze well, so it is most often cooked fresh each week. It is also considered to be too "heavy" compared to other "lighter" foods that are frequently consumed on weekdays, such as dairy products, salads, soups, fish, or chicken.

Judaism teaches that on Shabbat a person is endowed with an "extra soul" (known as the neshama yeteirah in Hebrew) which manifests itself in an increased capacity to consume more food during the Shabbat meals. Therefore this is an underlying spiritual reason why it is easier to eat more food, quantitatively and qualitatively, such as cholent, kishka, kugel, chopped liver and other "heavy foods" on Shabbat, which one could not do on a regular weekday.

Etymology of the word

The word cholent is thought by some to be derived from the Old French words chaud meaning "hot" and lent meaning "slow". Others^[1] believe it is derived from the Latin calentem, meaning "hot." The term chamin is Hebrew or Aramaic, and is mentioned in the Mishnah Tractate Shabbat (3:1), where it means hot water. Another hypothesized derivation for the word is from "shelan", which means "that rested". This refers to the old time cooking process of European families placing their individual pots of cholent into the town baker's oven's which remained hot overnight and slow cooked overnight.

Interestingly, an extant word used in the English language would seem to settle this debate. Dictionary.com in its' word history of the word nonchalant reads as follows (emphasis added): "A nonchalant person is not likely to become warm or heated about anything, a fact that is underscored by the etymology of the word nonchalant. It stems from Old French, where it was formed from the negative prefix non- plus chalant, the present participle of the verb chaloir, "to be concerned." This in turn came from the Latin word calēre, which from its concrete sense "to be hot or warm" developed the figurative sense "to be roused or fired with hope, zeal, or anger."

Cholent = Chalant = Hot or Warm .

Oneg Shabbat enjoyment and cholent

"Cholent, beauteous spark immortal,
Daughter of Elysium!"
Thus would Schiller's song have sung it,
Had he ever tasted Cholent.

Heinrich Heine, Princess Sabbath, c. 1850

Classical Judaism requires that the Shabbat and Jewish holidays be "honored" in a variety of ways that go beyond the customary prayers and Torah readings in synagogues. It is customary to bathe on Fridays and dress in one's finest clothing in honor of the Shabbat (kavod Shabbat) and to purchase, prepare and eat the best traditional foods that one can afford. Formal festive meals (also known as seudat mitzvah) are an important element of Shabbat and holiday enjoyment.

Included in the notion of oneg Shabbat ("enjoyment [on/of] Shabbat") is the requirement that warm foods be served and eaten and that the dining area be well lit and heated so that Shabbat dining should be a deliberately enjoyable and pleasurable experience for everyone partaking of the meals. This is an important reason why, for example, at the Friday night Shabbat meal hot chicken soup is traditionally served. The eating of a hot and well cooked tasty cholent in particular is the high-point of oneg Shabbat at the main Shabbat lunch meal on late Saturday morning or early afternoon. However, Jewish law stipulates an important proviso, that no kindling of fires or lights or cooking of food may take place on Shabbat itself. Therefore everything in or on the oven or any switches or lights must be already pre-lit, pre-set, pre-cooked and preheated prior to the onset of the arrival of Shabbat's official "candle lighting time" which is approximately eighteen minutes before sunset in whichever geographic area that one lives in and where one therefore practices (or "keeps" or "observes") the Shabbat.

(An exception takes place on certain Jewish holidays that do not occur on the Shabbat when cooking is permitted on a Jewish holiday as long as the oven's fire has been pre-lit from prior to the onset of the Jewish holiday itself. This is derived from Torah law. See also: Eruv for cooking.)

Historical disputes concerning hot foods on Shabbat

The original rationale for the preparation of cholent prior to the onset of the Jewish Sabbaths -- by some as early as Thursdays and by Friday afternoon at the latest -- stems from the Torah's prohibitions against kindling any type of fire on Shabbat and also forbidding baking/cooking on Shabbat (see 39 categories of activity prohibited on Shabbat.)

According to classical Judaism's Oral Law (as encoded and expressed in the Talmud and Shulkhan Arukh ["Code of Jewish Law"]) this means that one may not light any type of fire for any reason and not bake or cook fresh food on Shabbat itself, but one may keep previously-cooked/baked and prepared food warm if it is placed on a covered fire before dusk on Friday which is the time when Shabbat commences. (Where the contemporary notion is that a day runs from midnight to midnight, the tradition in Judaism is for a day to run from sunset to sunset -- cf. the line from the Book of Genesis, "And there was evening and there was morning, one day".)

The Karaites, a group of Jews founded in the early Middle Ages who dismissed the authority of the rabbinical sages and claimed to be following a more exact interpretation of the Torah, claimed that the Torah prohibits the derivation of any benefit or enjoyment from any fires or lights on Shabbat. The Karaites therefore forbade the enjoyment on Shabbat of anything that is heated or preheated (or preset) even if the lighting, heating or cooking was begun well before the onset of the Shabbat.

The Karaites' observance of laws based on their literalistic readings of the Hebrew Bible convinced many of their followers that it is prohibited to derive any benefit from any type of fires on Shabbat whatsoever and it was therefore forbidden to eat any warmed foods on Shabbat, even if the fire was lit prior to Shabbat itself. The Karaites thus ate only cold foods on Shabbat. The Karaites also forbade the lighting of any lights or the use of any heat on Shabbat espousing that it is preferable to sit in the cold and dark and eat cold foods on Shabbat, believing that this is what God commands Jews to do in the Torah.

As an important manifestation of the massive schism between the Karaites and the rabbis (the Karaites referred to followers of the rabbis as Rabbanites), Karaites ate only cold foods on Shabbat whereas those Jews who followed the rabbis who opposed the Karaites made sure that on Shabbat they ate hot foods heated by ovens that had been lit before the onset of Shabbat. During that era, a Jew who deliberately avoided eating hot meals on Shabbat was suspected of being a Karaite and was castigated by the community.

Following the example and admonitions of Rabbi Saadia Gaon (882-942), who was the chief rabbinical leader opposing the Karaites, Torah observant Jews (essentially all Orthodox Jews and all those who seek to maintain these Jewish traditions) since that time have made it a key minhag ("custom") to deliberately make a point against the Karaites's views by making sure that before Shabbat would begin they would light any sort of candle or lamp for lighting, make sure that there would be heat from an oven (when it is cold) readied before Shabbat, and preparing at least one hot meal prior to Shabbat and keep it warm and simmering for many hours and then eat it at the main Shabbat meal the next day (i.e., Saturday lunch), so as to symbolically distance themselves from what they declared to be the Karaites' mis-interpretations of the Torah which would then openly display personal loyalty to the teachings of the rabbis who opposed the Karaites. So historically it has been cholent, since it is a stew which improves in flavor and taste the longer it is cooked, that became a favorite -- and very important -- Shabbat food.

Alternatives to meat cholent

For those who may dislike cholent or are vegetarians, customarily drink warm liquids such as hot tea as part of their Shabbat meals and thereby display their loyalty to the rabbis' interpretations of how Shabbat should be practiced. Another alternative is to prepare and cook vegetarian cholents that do not contain any meats or meat derivatives. Beefless cholents have always been eaten by families that could not afford meat.

Recipes for cholents

File:CrockPot.JPG

A modern slow cooker (also called a Crock-Pot) of the type that is used in homes to cook cholent in honor of Shabbat. This one has a removable 'pot' (upper left), lid (lower left), and heater/housing (right).

There is no standard recipe for cholent. Recipes vary according to the geographic areas of Europe in which Jews lived for centuries and in some cases for millennia. The core traditional basic ingredients of cholent usually includes a good proportion of kosher beef (often flanken which requires longer cooking time and softens as it stews) -- or as an alternative meat source: chicken, turkey, veal, frankfurters, or goose -- combined with a variety of fresh vegetables consisting of any one or more of potatoes, onions, any type of or size of beans, barley, and as much water and spices such as salt, pepper, garlic, or anything else that enhances its flavor (see seasoning), that is required to create a stew-like consistency with enough moisture that it will not evaporate as it cooks for a long time. Other vegetables and ingredients such as wheat, carrots, sweet potato, tomatoes, tomato sauce, ketchup, honey, dried fruit, paprika, and/or black pepper may be added to the stew before cooking. For additional flavor and a browning effect, either some onions and/or meat may be sauteed or fried or a small amount of sugar may be carmelized in oil before adding the rest of the ingredients. Some are known to also add beer or whisky to cholent to add flavor.

One item which is often added is kosher kishka which is also known as stuffed derma. Kishka is a type of kosher sausage which is stuffed with mashed vegetables (often carrots, potatoes, onions and/or other vegetables), flour, beef fat and spices. Traditionally, kishka was made with intestinal lining from a cow. Today, the casing is often edible sausage casings no different than salami or hot dogs.

The cooking process is then one of simmering and stewing.

Low-fat recipes

Low-calorie versions of cholent call for tofu and a wider variety of vegetables, while vegetarian recipes eliminate the meat or chicken in favor of more beans and grains. Ashkenazi families may also place a large meat- or vegetarian-based sausage (kishka), and/or dumplings (kreplach) inside the pot and atop the stew while it cooks. The kishka absorbs the flavors and provides another side dish for the Shabbat morning meal. In the shtetls of Eastern Europe, families would keep their pots of cholent warm in the large oven of the town baker.

Sephardi chamin recipes

The Sephardi version of cholent, called chamin (חמין) (from the Hebrew, חם, "hot") calls for whole, stuffed vegetables in addition to meat or chicken. Whole vegetables such as tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant halves and zucchini are stuffed with a mixture of beef and rice, and are then placed into the pot with meat or chicken and chickpeas. Sephardim also add spices such as cumin and hot peppers.

An oriental (Moroccan or Iberian) version called dafeena is a spicier dish which uses garlic, cinnamon, allspice and ginger.

Sephardi-style cholent typically includes whole eggs in the shell, which turn brown in the course of the cooking (guevos haminadavos in Ladino), also known as haminados, there also is a Tunisian version of brown eggs prepared in a metal pot on the all night stove with water and tea leaves and after peeling eggs added to the chamin (baked beans and legumes with meat).

References

^ Max Weinreich

Finkel, Sara (1989). Classic Kosher Cooking. Southfield, Michigan: Targum Press Inc. ISBN 0-944070-14-0.
Pomerantz, Kay Kantor (1997). "Come for Cholent". NY, NY: Bloch Publishing Co. ISBN 0-8197-0598-5.

External links

[1] Max Weinreich

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