The First Jewish Food

Wikipedia bouncing is one of my favorite things to do. If we use “surfing” to describe crawling the web, just think of this as skating: start off researching an article, then click on a hotlink that you’re distracted by, followed by another. Before long, you’re six thousand degrees from where you started. As in, from shofar to Shatner.

In any event, that’s how I discovered the Wikipedia entry for sandwich — which claims that the “first form of sandwich is attributed to the ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder, who is said to have put meat from the Paschal lamb and bitter herbs inside matzo.” (Interestingly, that same entry specifies that the bread in an “official” sandwich must be leavened. Go fig.)

Fortunately, MJL’s amazing recipe section (which I’m not just saying is amazing because I work here; my wife is a personal chef, and food is one of my #1 Wikibouncing distractions) includes a recipe for the Syrian Jewish specialty sabich. There’s some neat etymology stuff about the origin of the word “sandwich” here.

And, on the blog, Meredith takes us back to everyone’s favorite pre-Paul Newman Oreo replacement for us kosher folks.