Kugels and Collards

"Southern Jews revealed who they were and what they believed through the foods they ate—and did not eat."—Marcie Cohen Ferris

"The best cookbooks weave an evocative personal narrative with a treasure trove of irresistible recipes, in the process deepening our understanding of a culture and its food. Kugels and Collards more than delivers on this formula, opening a new window into South Carolina Jewry and its rich, delicious history."—Adeena Sussman, author of Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals From My Table To Yours

"Kugels and Collards is a book we've been waiting for. Through first-person accounts and family recipes, Rachel Barnett and Lyssa Harvey reveal the expressive power of food to speak as well as to nourish. Here the history of South Carolina is told in stories that hark back to first-generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Germany, England, Holland, the Mediterranean, and the West Indies, and to descendants of Africans who worked in Jewish kitchens and groceries, bakeries and butcher shops. Region and religion clash as observant Jews strive to keep kosher in the land of shrimp and pork. Every page, every photograph, every "long-loved recipe" is charged with memories and a determination to honor the cooks by passing their legacies to the next generation."—Dale Rosengarten, founding director of the Jewish Heritage Collection, College of Charleston, and curator and coeditor of A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life

"This brilliant book has made me terribly sorry I wasn't raised Jewish in South Carolina. From challah and cheesecake, peach cobbler and pickles you can make in a day, collards simmered down with onions and tomatoes to kugel baked with raisins and apricot jam, the recipes in this book tell important stories of Southern Jewish foodways, give thanks to the African American cooks who worked in Jewish home kitchens, and remind us how food connects us all."—Anne Byrn, food writer and author of American Cake