Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir [Paperback]

Elizabeth Ehrlich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1998

Like many Jewish Americans, Elizabeth Ehrlich was ambivalent about her background. She identified with Jewish cultural attitudes, but not with the institutions; she had fond memories of her Jewish grandmothers, but she found their religious practices irrelevant to her life. It wasn't until she entered the kitchen--and world--of her mother-in-law, Miriam, a Holocaust survivor, that Ehrlich began to understand the importance of preserving the traditions of the past. As Ehrlich looks on, Miriam methodically and lovingly prepares countless kosher meals while relating the often painful stories of her life in Poland and her immigration to America. These stories trigger a kind of religious awakening in Ehrlich, who--as she moves tentatively toward reclaiming the heritage she rejected as a young woman--gains a new appreciation of life's possibilities, choices, and limitations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Food memoirs often delve into the meaning of life. This hardly surprises--memories are as essential to daily life as the food that sustains us. Miriam's Kitchen blends recipes and food reminiscences with family narratives and observations about the author's personal evolution as a Jew. Ehrlich weaves the stories from four generations of family life, punctuated with powerful and often tragic memories. While her mother-in-law, Miriam, is teaching her to make chicken livers with noodles, Ehrlich unexpectedly learns how Miriam, her mother, and husband survived a Nazi labor camp in Poland during the Holocaust. Using vivid and bare yet discreet words, she graphically tells what they suffered and the nightmares that still haunt them.

Ehrlich's own story covers her transformation from a child whose family lit Sabbath candles but went boating on Yom Kippur, to an adult who chooses an Orthodox life marked by ambivalence about the rigors of being kosher and pride in what she is passing on to her children. Recipes for Honey Cake, Noodle Pudding, and many others are buried treasures hidden among Ehrlich's intense words. Sadly omitted is a recipe for potato kugel. Her grandmother uses this tempting pudding to good-naturedly test, taunt, and ultimately as the means for accepting her daughter Selina's non-Jewish fiancé into the family. Happily for us, 24 other tempting kosher recipes make up for this one missed dish. Miriam's Kitchen is a gripping and gratifying memoir of food, life, tragedy, and family survival. --Dana Jacobi

From Library Journal

Ehrlich, a former writer for BusinessWeek, writes with humor and passion about her journey from ambivalent Jew to a woman who observes tradition and teaches her children about their ethnic heritage. Her story begins when she meets Miriam, her future mother-in-law, a Polish Holocaust survivor who "guarded culinary specialties in her mind during years when possession and certainties were ripped from her hands." Through Miriam, Ehrlich awakens to dormant memories and traditions in her past and gradually decides that her own family life would have greater meaning if she made her kitchen kosher. The author opens a window on a culture and tradition that her readers may know nothing about, discussing religious and dietary laws and sharing over two dozen recipes for traditional foods. Orthodox readers will likely see themselves in descriptions of the humor and ambivalence involved in trying to incorporate the traditions in today's society. The writing is crisp and smooth. Recommended for public libraries.?Susan Dearstyne, Hudson Valley Community Coll., Troy, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014026759X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140267594
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Women and Judaism
  • #7 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Kosher

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like Listening to Your Bubbe's stories, December 8, 1999

By 

Cathy G. Plotkin (Washington, DC area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir (Paperback)

I was touched by the special relationship that the author developed with her mother-in-law, Miriam. Through Miriam, we are all so fortunate to hear her life's story, and ultimately, many women's stories from the Old Country. While the author does skip around in thoughts, her essays touch on numerous New York style traditions. I enjoyed reading the index afterwards, and realizing how many different topics she had covered. My synagogue did a book review and it was very favorable. Just one warning: many of the recipes apparently are NOT coming out right! Be sure to read the hilarious disclaimer about the recipes in the front of the book. The recipe I tried (Choc. chip and pineapple cake with meringue) DID come out delicious and was very different! Also be aware that this really is not a cookbook,per se, so it should be read as a story. Some of the stories ARE holocaust-related and as such, contain sad episodes. This book mostly establishes a mother-in-law's successful attempt to bring Judaism back into the major portion of her daughter-in-law's life. Anyone who has decided to keep kosher after being married will laugh with sympathy at some early attempts to do things right!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding! Read this book! Deserves 10 stars..., September 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir (Paperback)

If I could give this book a 10-star rating, I would. Elizabeth Ehrlich has written this memoir from her heart, and it shows. The memoir traces the deepening relationship between Ehrlich and her mother-in-law, Miriam, as well as Ehrlich's memories of her fiercely left-wing family in the inner city of Detroit. Both families celebrate their Judaism through food, drink, ritual, prayer and family ties. Ehrlich's views on Judaism shift as she travels the road to middle age, first as a young girl, then as a young adult, next as a new wife and, finally, as the mother of three young children. Along the way she explores such complexities as Miriam's memories of the Holocaust and her native Poland, the challenges of managing a kosher home, and the joys and regrets of interfaith unions.

Travel Ehrlich's road with her and you won't regret it-- her book is rich with memories and love. An added bonus: the reproduction of many of Miriam's mouthwatering recipes.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Living kosher and liking it...., November 18, 2000

By 

William Sugarman "nprfan1" (Great Neck, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir (Paperback)

This book is a lot of things. It's a cookbook (although I will take a previous reviewer's warning to heart and be careful about following the recipes); it's a reminiscence of sorts (the memories of Ehrlich's mother-in-law Miriam and others about European/American/immigrant Jewish life in the era of World War II); and finally, it's a book about a certain way of Jewish living. All three of these books are wonderful.

The chapters with recipes in them put me in mind of the movie "The Big Night" (that's the one where you saw all that marvelous food being prepared in Stanley Tucci's restaurant in preparation for Louis Prima's visit). These parts of the book are the print equivalent - my mouth watered just reading about the preparation of those dishes.

The other parts of the book describe a world that's fast becoming extinct. There is a new wave of religious fervor in Judaism, but it's just not the same as the religion my grandparents observed. That was a meeting of the Old World with the New, and I don't really think that will happen again.

I do hope that Ehrlich writes a sequel (or some columns for distribution in newspapers or magazines). I'd like to know how she and her family are continuing to reconcile their version of religion with secular America. I'm sure it will become harder once Miriam and Jacob, her in-laws, pass on. They have been her teachers and guides (Miriam more so than Jacob), and I would like to know if she's truly acquired their commitment as well as their recipes.