It was an exciting year for Jewish food: fusion delis, crazy bagels and a slew of new kosher products cropped up near and far to make 2015 an especially delicious year. Here are a few of the trends that got us most excited.
Babka is the New Black
Whether you are part of the cult following of Breads Bakery in NYC or a blogger creating flavors like matcha black seed babka, the sweet yeast cake was everywhere this year. From doughnut babka and savory babka, everyone fell in love with the beloved Eastern European dessert. And we couldn’t be happier. Check out some of our favorite recipes including nutella babka, chocolate brown sugar babka and classic babka.
The Bagel Comeback
It’s not that bagels ever went out of style. Who doesn’t love a Sunday morning bagel with coffee and the paper? But in 2015 we saw a whole resurgence of bagels. From Montreal-style bagels at New York’s Black Seed Bagels to crazy concoctions like the rainbow bagel with funfetti cream cheese, bagels took the spotlight this year. Now if only California could produce a great bagel….we’ll leave that one for 2016.
Kosher-style “Bacon”
There really is nothing quite like bacon. Unless of course you keep kosher and don’t eat it, in which case, you might be on an endless search for the holy grail of kosher meats. And this year, non-pork bacon products really took center stage, both from purveyors of meat products like Jack’s Gourmet, Kol Foods, Grow and Behold and non-kosher beef Schmacon, as well as kosher restaurants serving up kosher bacon as part of their menus. Melinda Strauss of the blog Kitchen-Tested shared that Wandering Que in New York makes their own lamb belly bacon as does Chaim Silverberg (aka as Lamb Baaacon) of Baltimore. And Dani Klein of YeahThatsKosher.com shared that kosher bacon is appearing on menus everywhere from La Gondola in Los Angeles, which features candied bacon on their secret menu, to Izzy’s BBQ in Brooklyn, which served beef bacon donuts this Hanukkah.
Jewish-and-Something-Else Restaurants
Pastrami quesadillas. Reuben arancini. Sabich tostada. If the names of these dishes sound a bit confusing to you, it’s because they are part of a whole new era of Jewish fusion food emerging all over the United States. From latke-BLT sandwiches in Seattle, Jewish-Italian cuisine in Philadelphia to Israeli-Mexican fusion from Einat Admony in New York, Jewish food mash-ups are the cuisine of the moment and we can’t wait to see what new dishes await in 2016.
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kosher
Pronounced: KOH-sher, Origin: Hebrew, adhering to kashrut, the traditional Jewish dietary laws.
