Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South [Hardcover]

Marcie Cohen Ferris (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 5, 2005

Since early colonial times in America, Jewish southerners have been tempted by delectable regional foods. Because some of these foods--including pork and shellfish--have been traditionally forbidden to Jews by religious dietary laws, southern Jews face a special predicament. In a culinary journey through the Jewish South, Arkansas native Marcie Cohen Ferris explores how southern Jews embraced, avoided, and adapted southern food and, in the process, have found themselves at home.

From colonial Savannah and Charleston to Civil War era New Orleans and Natchez, from New South Atlanta to contemporary Memphis and across the Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas, Ferris examines the expressive power of food throughout southern Jewish history. She demonstrates how southern Jews reinvented traditions as they adjusted to living in a largely Christian world where they were bound by regional rules of race, class, and gender.

Featuring a trove of photographs, Matzoh Ball Gumbo also includes anecdotes, oral histories, and more than thirty recipes to try at home. Ferris's rich tour of southern Jewish foodways shows that, at the dining table, Jewish southerners created a distinctive religious expression that reflects the evolution of southern Jewish life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Many traditional Southern foods—pulled-pork barbecue, crab cakes, fried oyster po' boys, to name a few—violate traditional Jewish dietary laws, which forbid the consumption of pork and shellfish. What's a Southern Jew to do? Anthropological historian Ferris (UNC–Chapel Hill) answers that question in a gustatory tour of the Jewish South. She uncovers many dishes that blend Jewish and Southern foodways (recipes included for such tasties as Temple Israel Brisket and Cornmeal-Fried Fish Fillets with Sephardic Vinagre Sauce). Ferris sees food as a symbol that encompasses the problem of how Jews live in a region dominated by Christians: "The most tangible way to understand Jewish history and culture in the South is at the dinner table." Cynics will wonder if a Jewish kugel (noodle casserole) prepared in the South is really any different from kugel in Chicago. Ferris's answer is an emphatic yes—because Jews in the South face different challenges than those in Chicago. Southern Jews must be more intentional about cooking that kugel and passing the recipe down from generation to generation. If this book were a restaurant, Michelin would award it two out of three stars: not absolutely first-rate, but "excellent cooking, worth a detour." (Oct.)
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Review

"In Matzoh Ball Gumbo, author Marcie Cohen Ferris has chronicled an important history of food and culture that is a fundamental element of who we are as southerners."
-A Rep Reading blog

"Fascinating reading mixed with delicious recipes."
— Chicago Tribune, a syndicated column

"Takes readers on a tasty road trip."
-- Arkansas Libraries

"This culinary journey embraces oral histories, poignant anecdotes and evocative photographs to explore the power of food in the Jewish South. More than 30 recipes, many blending Jewish and Southern food traditions, add a cook's perspective and illustrate the story at the dinner table."
— Chapel Hill Magazine

"Handsomely produced, filled with vivid and evocative photographs with many piquant sidebars. . . . The carefully selected recipes that accompany each chapter are skillfully adapted and usable."
— Journal of Material Religion

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; 1ST edition (October 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807829781
• ISBN-13: 978-0807829783
• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 7.3 x 10.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #965,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Read and a Surprise April 18, 2006

By I. King

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I expected a cookbook (which is why it's 4 stars instead of 5, and that's the *only* reason), but got a history book instead.

It's an amazing book. My grandmother worked for Jewish families in the 50s and 60s and I remember accompanying her to their homes when I was a youngster visiting her in NC. There is a certain nostalgia there as the Jewish people always treated her with respect and dignity. All the while they were walking their own precarious tightrope between the gentiles and the black people.

I also found something more while poring over the pages of this book and that is a link to my family's own Jewish past. I have the utmost respect for the amount of research done by Marcie Ferris. It was a herculean task!

Oh. And the recipes (the few) are pretty terrific.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nine-tenths Jewish American history, one-tenth cookbook November 6, 2005

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Hardcover

Nine-tenths Jewish American history, one-tenth cookbook, Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales Of The Jewish South combines tales of growing up and growing old in a Southern Jewish family with vintage black-and-white photographs and mouth-watering recipes. Delights such as Camp Blue Star Claremont Salad, Mimah's Cheesecake, Caper Sauce Fish and more supplement this lengthy and engaging history with a homestyle perspective. Exhaustive research and an index for quick and easy topic or recipe lookup round out this leisurely reading delight.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Southern Style Jewish January 26, 2006

By Southern Expat

Format:Hardcover

A lovely, well written book that captures the complications and accomodations of being Jewish in the South. The recipes are wonderful. If you're a southern Jew, you'll feel right at home. If you're not, you'll learn a lot about Jewish life outside New York!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Surprise September 3, 2010

By Michaela

Format:Paperback

My fiancé and I are Jews from Louisiana, and got this book as a gift. At first, we thought that it was a cookbook, but it is a history book with recipes.

Pleasantly surprised! Love it!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Matzo balls and memories May 23, 2007

By Jewish Cajun

Format:Hardcover

As a Deep South Jewish expatriate, I can't say enough about how thoroughly Marcie Cohen Ferris did her research. There is no doubt that she has covered the differences-and similarities-of the various southern states with great heart and accuracy! The sheer volume of names of those she got family information from is more than admirable. The book belongs in every Jewish household-northern and southern! And non-Jewish readers will get a wonderful picture of the influence food had in Southern Jewish homes-part of American culinary history.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of research, not many insights March 11, 2008

By Jonathan Groner VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This was a wonderful topic for a book -- how Southernness and Jewishness came together in the Jewish kitchen. Cohen Ferris, herself a Jewish woman from a small town in Arkansas, has done exhaustive research, no doubt a labor of love, and has perpetuated many people's memories.

The problem with the book is that it is quite repetitious. Ferris Cohen correctly points out that the culture and history of Atlanta, New Orleans, the Mississippi Delta, and so on are all distinct from each other. Then, however, she spends much of her time recounting menus of long-ago occasions and concluding, over and over again, that the balance between kosher and non-kosher food and between European and American Southern delicacies was important and hard to navigate, because food is so important in daily life.

It is not so much a question of Ferris Cohen's writing style but of the fact that she seemed compelled to put on paper all of the results of her painstaking interviews. Perhaps a more insightful historian could have made more of Ferris Cohen's material, but this book just seemed too long.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting June 9, 2013

By mpez0

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Interesting reading for a background on late 19th - early 20th century Southern US Jews, from a culinary standpoint. Because of Kashrut, looking at the cooking traditions is a good way of getting at Jewish migrations.

9 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Too much starch in the matzo balls July 10, 2006

By Michelle B. Braverman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fascinating subject matter as I grew up in an area where Jews were a vocal and very assimilated minority. The author's extensive research came to the same conclusions in every chapter: it was hard to keep Kosher in the South and black household help did much of the cooking. As a Jewish woman I am proud of our reputation for a sense of humor and delicious cooking. There are very few recipes; even those were not particularly tempting or typical. The book's major flaws lie in the author's dry, labored, one-note writing style that had me laboring to stay awake.