Sephardim

Monday night I was fortunate enough to attend my first Sephardic Rosh Hashanah dinner. To clarify, Sephardic Jews are the Jews of Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East and their descendants, while Ashkenazic Jews are the Jews of France, Germany, and Eastern Europe and their descendants. I fall under the latter category. However, my good friend Michael falls under the former and so it was with great excitement that I took the LIRR to Great Neck to take part in his family's traditions and his grandmother's Iraqi cooking.

The meal commenced with a ritual I was unfamiliar with. It involved passing around various foods(from dates to spinach to pomegranate seeds to scallions) to the twenty person table and saying a blessing over each one. The blessings were very interesting, ranging from the pomegranate prayer:
May it be your will Adonai, our God and God of our ancestors, that our deeds be as manifold as the seeds of the pomegranate. …Shenihiyeh Milai Mitzvot K’Rimon.

to the date prayer:
May it be your will Adonai, our God and God of our ancestors, that our enemies will be consumed. …SheYitamu Sonenanu. (the Hebrew word for dates, has a auricular similarity with the word yitamu - will be consumed)

I guess Adonai is a vengeful God.


My favorite of these morsels was the apples stewed in rosewater (to symbolize a sweet new year). This is akin to what my own family does ie. dipping apples in honey, but the rosewater was so refreshing that I went back for seconds and thirds.

After the prayers, the meal was served. The highlight was a traditional sephardic dish called Mahasha which consisted of peppers, zucchini, beets and onions, all stuffed with rice, ground beef and spices. I really had never had anything like it. The catch is that you have to parboil the vegetables then hallow them out, add the filling and then bake them. Delicious. Michael's grandma has this down to a science, but from what I could gather most of her kin are intimidated by the laborious process of making Mahasha. I would love to try the recipe (you can find it here), but I think I'll start with just stuffed peppers and work towards the other vegetables.