Foodwanderings

What do the Jews of India call Passover ‘The holiday of the covered clay pot with the sour liquid’?

Indian clay pot Image by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

What do the Jews of India call Passover ‘The holiday of the covered clay pot with the sour liquid’?

The Bene Israel, India’s largest Jewish community, doesn’t call Passover Passover. The word in their language, Marathi, is “Anashi Dhakaicha San,” which means “The Holiday of the Closing of the Anas.”

San is the word for holiday, and anas refers to a sour liquid in a pot.

It makes sense that the Marathi word for Yom Kippur is “Darfalnicha San, or “The Holiday of the Closing Doors,” since Bene Israel fast in their homes behind shut doors — the first Bene Israeli synagogue wasn’t built in Mumbai until 1796.

But the mystery behind The Holiday of the Closing of the Sour Liquid in a Pot takes a bit more explanation.

The first mention of Anashi Dhakaicha San appears in “The History of the Bene Israel of India,” a book in English by the renowned Bene Israeli community leader and historian Haeem Samuel Kehimkar, who lived from 1830 – 1909. This first historical manuscript about the Indian Jewish community living in Mumbai and its surrounding villages on the Konkan coast was written in the nineteenth century. It was kept hidden in the family’s possession for 40 years after Kehimkar’s death. The manuscript was given to Dr. Immanuel Olswangner, a researcher of the Indian Jewish communities, and was published in 1937 in Tel Aviv.

In “The History of the Bene Israel of India,” Kehimkar writes, “From the 14th of Nissan they observed for eight days a holiday called Anasi Dhakacha San i.e. ‘the holiday of the closing of the A n a s (an earthen chatty, containing sour liquid used as a sauce). They abstained from using the sour liquid, as well as any leaven, during the period of the feast. On the 23rd of the month they uncovered the chatty, and used leaven as before.”

Earthen chatty is a clay pot. That is how Dr. Olswangner referred to Passover as “The Holiday of the Covered Pot” in “Travel Impressions,” his India travel diary notes published in 1936 in Hebrew by now-defunct Israeli publication Davar.

Photo ©ShulieMadnick

Israeli-Indian Jew in Mumbai Unearths the Spice of Her Life

Little did I know, when my Indian-Israeli aunt insisted on visiting a certain spice shop during my visit to Mumbai, that it would be in the Lalbaug spice bazaar. I had marked the bazaar as a must visit on the Google map I “drew” while planning my trip to India. Like my aunt, many Indian Israelis visit this shop when they land in Mumbai. Lalbaug, the neighborhood, is also my dad’s old stomping ground.

It was a rainy day, the last of the monsoons. Our large hotel umbrellas were threatening to poke people in the eyes and get entangled in the protective tarps above the merchant’s stalls that line the narrow sidewalks, and strip them right off. A self-appointed English-speaking guide accosted us as soon as we entered the market. My aunt, for the second time in two days, was yelling in Marathi (the language of the state of Maharshtra), resisting this stranger’s relentless attempts to steer us in the direction of his friend’s shop. The first “volunteer” guide had been shooed away by my aunt the day before, at the Crawford vegetable and fruit market to the South of Lalbaug’s bazaar. This time, the umbrella was her tool and prop of intimidation, a sword and a baseball bat in one. Bollywood couldn’t have scripted a better animated drama.

We searched for this particular wholesaler, which doubles as the retail spice shop that my aunt knew of, walking up and down this one lane several times. When I gave up and turned towards the main spice-shops drag, with displays of perfectly colorful spice mounds, my aunt disappeared. Turns out we didn’t walk far enough. She found the shop up at the corner. We proceeded to deplete everything in sight.

Photo: ©Shulie Madnick

My happiest memories of my father are of mid afternoon Fridays, the only time we would find him in the kitchen. A flock of six kids, like turtles making their journey back to the sea, trekking back home tired and famished on mid afternoon Fridays.

A couple of my younger siblings, walking a few miles back home from school, moments ago just jolted out of their seats in their classrooms, at the much awaited sound of the bell signaling the end of school week and freedom.

Another brother or a sister, stepping back home, dusty from an excursion on the patchy green, mostly sandy play area or from a playful ride outside on our lone brand new bike. I am hitchhiking in the scorching sun, from my army base somewhere in central Israel and heading home south, after an entire week or two of being away. Us all famished and cannot wait for Friday night Shabbat dinner.

While my mother scurries in her small kitchen, in the midst of preparation of a traditional Indian Shabbat dinner, she allots one burner for my father and his mid afternoon Friday attempts to ease our hunger and soothe our stomachs, with his claim to culinary fame, shakshuka.

I enter our home to the sights of windows and doors wide open, sheer curtains are standing still, longing for a late afternoon, early evening, cool Mediterranean sea breeze, and aromas of my father’s, made to order, Shakshuka or my sisters rolling out, thin crust pizza doughs. Scents of quintessential North African cuisine flow through our wide open windows from our Moroccan neighbors’ preparations of a traditional Friday night couscous, instead of the elusive cool sea breezes.

My father, a jokester, would cook on those Fridays with much ceremony, air and laughter. Kidding around and playfully teasing us all the while. Not letting us dig into the dish or hurry the process. He was meticulous. We would beg for him to hurry but he liked the shakshuka just so, just like his tailored made pants and button down shirts, perfectly measured by a neighborhood tailor nearby.

I share with you an Indian version of the shakshuka , poached eggs in curry sauce. Curry powder is a blend of fresh spices that usually consists of some if not all of these ingredients: red chili pepper, turmeric, black pepper, cardamom, coriander, cumin, ginger, clove, cinnamon, fennel, mustard and more. The ratio and proportion of the curry spice blend widely varies from state to state in India, region by region and from one household to another based on the dish you cook and personal preference. Nowadays you can find curry powder in any mainstream supermarket in the United States or in your neighborhood Indian grocers if you happen to live in or by a major metropolitan area. For the purposes of this recipe a straight forward curry powder from the spice isle in your nearby supermarket will do wonders with this shakshuka.

Indian Shakshuka — Poached Eggs in Curry Sauce
2-4 servings

4-6 eggs
4 tablespoons canola oil
1 large onion, diced

Image iStock

Vada Pav; Fried Potato Sliders, A Spicy Mumbai Street Food Make Festive Latke Substitute

I had only two days left in Mumbai before flying back home to the U.S. (with a few days layover in Tel Aviv, where I was born and raised). I had pretty much checked off all the boxes on my Jewish-Indian heritage discovery trip to India. I’d visited almost every single active synagogue in this chaotic, yet somehow familiar, city of 20 million, which my parents called home until their 20s when they emigrated to Israel.

My list of Mumbai food musts, on the other hand, still remained a mile-long — with so little time left to explore.

Swati Snacks, a super hygienic, vegetarian Indian street food restaurant, was where I was going to “quench” my Mumbai street-food “thirst.” (I wouldn’t brave the street-food carts and stalls in order to satisfy my cravings.)

Swati Snacks is located in south Mumbai, not far from the awe-inspiring Mani Bhavan, Gandhi’s Mumbai headquarters and residence-turned-museum. Little did I know that I would go back to Swati for every meal of my remaining 48 hours, over order each time, and still yearn for more.

At Swati Snacks I ordered the quintessential Mumbai street food, the vada pav. A potato dumpling made with lightly mashed potatoes, the chunky mash is spiced with turmeric, fresh curry leaves, black mustard and cumin seeds, along with cilantro and green chili pepper, then it is dipped in chickpea flour batter and fried. The fried dumpling is then plopped on a Parker House-like roll and slathered with green- and red-pepper chutneys. The result is a dish of sinful mini “sliders” — carb on carb action — served as a trio.

It remains a mystery to me why I haven’t included the vada pav, a seemingly obvious Indian substitute for the Ashkenazi latke, in my eclectic, Indo-Mediterranean Hanukkah-gathering menus! (Though the thought always crosses my mind when December comes around each year.)

Batata vadas are made year-round. Traditionally at home they are served just as dumplings (batata vedas) without the buns (pavs). Although it’s not a traditional Jewish Indian Hanukkah dish, I am surprised it wasn’t adapted as one when the community learned about the holiday.

Hanukkah came to the Bene Israel (Sons of Israel) Jews in India (who were isolated from the rest of the Diaspora) much later than to other Jewish communities around the world, since they left Israel before the rededication of the 2nd Temple. They only had the first five books of the Bible, not the writings after.

Christian missionaries, in failed attempts to convert the community, and a Malabari (Cochini) Jew named Rahabi, were fundamental in teaching the Bene Israel Jews Hebrew and “modern Judaism.” There are several accounts of Rahabi’s arrival within the Bene Israel, but the date of his arrival is unknown, with accounts ranging between 1100 BCE and the 18th century.

A Family Recipe For Vada Pav

(An Indian, gluten-free, spiced potato dumpling in chickpea batter on a bun).

This deep-fried spiced potato dumpling in chickpea batter is called batata vada when served without a bun — as it commonly is when made at home — and vada pav when served with a bun, when eaten as street food. Specialty ingredients such as black mustard seeds and curry leaves can be found at your local Indian grocer, many mainstream supermarkets, or online. The bun is also traditionally smeared with gun powder when eaten as a street food. At our home, it was served with green chutney and tamarind chutney without the buns.

Makes one dozen
3–4 medium (1–1¼ pound) Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1–2 green chilis (or jalapeños), stemmed, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced

Halwa is a traditional Indian milk custard made by the Bene Israel Indian Jews in Mumbai for Rosh Hashanah. In India halwa is made with “chick,” a wheat gluten, but in Israel, a majority of the community is using cornstarch as a substitute, at times together with China grass (agar-agar). The recipe can be made with either milk or coconut milk diluted with water. At home growing up, my mom always made it with whole milk — as I continue doing every Rosh Hashanah. This year, I might make it with coconut milk inspired by "How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah.

This recipe and article "Flavors of an Indian-Israeli Rosh Hashanah" were originally published in Haaretz English edition on September 8, 2015. In an effort to curate my articles and recipes in one space, I republished the article and recipe in this space.

Look at the rosy halwa reel I made a year ago here, my son and a yellow "turmeric" halwa reel I made over two and half years ago here.

This article was originally published in The Forward on September 15, 2017. To curate my articles in one space, I am republishing it here just before Rosh Hashanah eve, falling on September 18, this year. Watch the recipe prep video at the bottom shot in Mumbai by me and edited by Amy Sawyer (Smoky Leo). All copyright material © ShulieMadnick. Please do not copy or republish without permission. A link to this post can be shared.

How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah

On the morning of Rosh Hashanah Eve 2016, I met Sharona Hayeems, a local Indian Jewish caterer, at her home in Dadar, a neighborhood in Mumbai where some of the remaining 4,500 Indian Jews in India still live. I was there to spend some time watching her cook for Rosh Hashanah.

I was introduced to Hayeems, a Bene Israel (Sons of Israel) Indian Jew, by the inimitable Elijah Jacob, the India executive director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC). Hayeems prepares kosher meals for Meals on Wheels, a program subsidized by the AJDC and Indian Joint Trust, which feeds the less fortunate in the Jewish community throughout the year, according to David Kumar, India AJDC welfare manager.

The crown jewel in my mom's culinary arsenal is this luxurious, aromatic lamb biryani. Only the regional biryanis I have had in India lived up to my mom's. The Mumbai biryanis made me think of how my mom, who still several decades later, manages to preserve the flavors and encapsulate the essence of Maharashtrian cuisine in Israel.

This sensational lamb biryani is at the center of the Bene Israel Indian Jewish Community's Passover holiday table. The rice is infused with saffron and then layered with the curry-spiced leg of lamb and garnished with cashews, raisins, crispy onions, and cilantro chips. The juxtaposition of sweet and savory flavors, crunchy and soft textures and many colors create a festive dish that is a Bene Israeli Passover (and Rosh HaShanah) tradition.

Biryani is originally from Persia. It was brought to India by the Arabs and Mongols. Over the centuries, the native Indian communities adapted the dish and made it their own. Although ghee, clarified butter, and yogurt are often used in the dish, Indian Jews replaced those dairy ingredients with vegetable oil to create a kosher rendition.

"Biblical Rituals and Passover Traditions of the Bene Israel, India's Largest Jewish Community," published in Haaretz newspaper in 2016 and re-edited and curated here, explores further the Bene Israelis foods of Passover (in India, the community primarily used goat meat). The article also explores the community's over 2000 year history in India and its unique Passover traditions.

Author's Notes:

1. Allergen alert: Those with a tree-nut allergy can leave out the cashews or substitute them with peanuts.

2. Some of the preparations for this dish can be made a couple of days in advance. The entire dish can be fully assembled the day of. This recipe is long, but the steps are not particularly difficult. The end result is well worth the effort.

3. At times, my mom also makes this biryani with a layer of potatoes at the bottom of the pot. The potatoes get crisp and golden, similar to the potatoes in the Persian tahdig. She then flips the pot into a serving dish for a showy presentation. I might share a simplified version of biryani with potatoes in the future.

4. I edited this recipe since, in versions published in both the Forward and the Hadassah Magazine, I used garam masala to make the process easier. My masala mix for this biryani contains 13 spices. I make a large batch and save it in the freezer. It can get costly and time-consuming, especially if you don't cook Indian food often. To make life easier and lower the cost, I suggest you buy a ready-made curry mix. Either a chicken/meat masala or a biryani one. Bonus points if you score masala from the State of Maharashtra, which Mumbai is its Capital. The dry masala mix recipe I will share one of these days.

4. In this method, I fully cook the rice and not cook it al dente in water like pasta, then finish it off layered in the pot with the lamb covered in the oven, not over the stove. I will share the al dente method when I share the simplified biryani (or tahdig) with the potato layer at the bottom (see number 2).

5. You can add more cashews, raisins, cilantro leaves and onions, depending on taste. Just make sure to fry them (see directions below).

Lamb Biryani

Lamb Ingredients

2.2 pounds deboned leg of lamb, cut into small/medium-sized cubes

Water to cover

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt

2 - 3 bay leaves

8 -10 cloves

This article was slightly tweaked from the original version published in The Forward on January 17, 2017. To curate my articles in one space, I am republishing it here just before Rosh Hashanah eve, falling on September 18, this year. All copyright material © ShulieMadnick. Please do not copy or republish without permission. A link to this post can be shared.

You can read How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah from the Rosh HaShanah and High Holidays series.

Chasing Challah in Mumbai

It was the break of dawn on a Thursday, as the monsoon waned in late October that we descended from the skies over the slum rooftops and landed at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai. My travel companion and I were then whisked off by our lovely Indian Jewish tour guide, Hanna Shapurkar, to Om Creations.

Om Creations is a nonprofit center where Down syndrome and autistic adults are taught arts and crafts and some culinary skills. The crafts and food are, in turn, sold as a means of support and income for the participants.

While still back home in the United States, planning my Jewish-Indian heritage discovery trip to India — my first trip to my parents' homeland — little did I know that I would be visiting Om Creations. What sparked my interest was an inconspicuous mention in an email correspondence from Elijah Jacob, India executive director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), about delivering challahs to the Indian-Jewish community in Mumbai. I was so intrigued that chasing challahs became the end-all and be-all of my trip to India.

This article was tweaked from the original version published in Haaretz Newspaper on September 8, 2015. In an effort to curate my articles in one space, I am republishing it here just before Rosh Hashanah, falling on September 18, this year. All copyright material © ShulieMadnick. Please do not copy or republish without permission. A link to this post can be shared.

You can read How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah and Chasing Challah in Mumbai from the Rosh HaShanah and High Holidays series. Recipes for both biryani and halwa will be published in separate posts.

Photography during the holidays is forbidden so I am sharing a snapshot of Magen Hassidim (above), my mom's synagogue in Mumbai, where I spent the 2016 High Holidays. This image, among others, is archived on The Museum of Jewish People's (בית התפוצות) library archives in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Flavors of an Indian-Israeli Rosh Hashanah

The first inkling that Rosh Hashanah was approaching when I was growing up was when my mom would come home to our fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Ashdod with Lily Pulitzer-like floral fabrics. I dreaded the frocks and matching hair bows that an Indian seamstress would sew us from the textiles. I would walk in the intense heat with my mom and my sister, who is a year younger than I, to the seamstress' home a few neighborhoods over for the measuring and fitting, and again for a second fitting and minor tweaks. My mom would definitively proclaim that the scraps and leftover fabrics "were enough" for my two youngest sisters' Rosh Hashanah gowns.

This sublime Marzipan Almond Challah Crown recipe first appeared in Bonnie Benwick's "How to make your challah lovelier and sweeter for the Jewish New Year," published in The Washington Post on September 8, 2015. I am republishing the Marzipan Almond Challah Crown recipe, with some edits, just in time for Rosh HaShanah 2021 falling on the eve of September 6 this year.

I baked with then Deputy Editor of the Washington Post food section, Bonnie Benwick, some of my challahs at her home that year before Rosh HaShanah. And amidst the couple of tumultuous years we had with COVID-19 and the looming Delta variant, these are much needed feel-good quotes and testimonials I re-visited from Bonnie's article above:

"The Washington area food blogger and travel writer bakes challah every Sabbath, as was the practice in many of her friends’ homes when she was growing up in an Indian-Israeli community in Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv. Looking to complement her Rosh Hashanah dishes — lamb biryani, veal-and-beef-stuffed artichoke bottoms in a spicy red sauce and the cornstarch-thickened, sweetened milk custard called halwa — Madnick figured out a way to capture fruit and/or nut fillings within each rope of dough. She braids those ropes in such appealing ways as to create almost a new class of High Holiday challah."

"Madnick worked on her base challah dough over many years. It’s not too eggy and, like others, not so fussy. Her flavor combinations can be seasonal: apples and quince in the fall; cranberry, orange and nigella seeds in the winter; cherry and oats in the spring. Rosh Hashanah stuffed challahs call for something sweet: chopped dates, fresh figs, even marzipan. Each sub-portion of dough that might have been a simple rope in a braided loaf of challah is first rolled out to a thin rectangle, then swabbed lightly with a syrup or jam to help hold the chopped fruit or nuts in place. Once the dough is rolled up, the filling stays contained, allowing for the usual braiding and shaping."

"Except Madnick’s techniques rise above the norm, appropriately. She’ll do a four- or six-part braid, winding it in on itself like a nautilus.."

I realize that, with some exceptions, I have many challah recipe riffs on this site that are based on my basic honey challah recipe. I published the original honey challah recipe many years ago, as a guest blogger, on Indonesia Eats. I would like to share a slightly tweaked honey challah recipe here since my recipe testing and writing improved in over a decade, so we have a honey challah baseline on Foodwanderings. You can get creative with the toppings and even fillings. For fillings, first, check out some of my other filled and stuffed challahs for directions. Please find links to my published challahs on this site, the Washington Post, etc., at the end of this post.

What do the Jews of India call Passover ‘The holiday of the covered clay pot with the sour liquid’?

Israeli-Indian Jew in Mumbai Unearths the Spice of Her Life

Indian Shakshuka

Vada Pav; Fried Potato Sliders, A Spicy Mumbai Street Food Make Festive Latke Substitute

Milk Halwa for Rosh Hashanah

How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah

Lamb Biryani for An Indian Passover ( & Rosh HaShanah)

Chasing Challah in Mumbai

Flavors of an Indian-Israeli Rosh Hashanah

Marzipan Almond Challah Crown

Honey Challah