Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

YIVO is offering free online Jewish cooking classes with your favorite foodies

Call this one Fressing with the Foodies.

The latest in a series of online courses from YIVO will spotlight Ashkenazi food, with cooking demonstrations by luminaries like Katz’s Deli owner Jake Dell, bestselling author Michael Wex, culinary scholar and chef Michael Twitty, and cookbook authors and Forward contributors Joan Nathan, Adeena Sussman, and Leah Koenig.

‘A Seat the Table: A Journey Into Jewish Food’ is the fourth class in YIVO’s Shine Online Educational Series, which explores “the story of Ashkenazi civilization”. With social distancing in mind, YIVO’s offering the classes free of charge.

“What defines Ashkenazi Jewish food? Like any great Jewish debate, the arguments are endless: Gefilte fish, sweet or peppery? Borsht, hot or cold, creamy or not? While these questions might seem trivial, they carry deep emotional and historical resonance,” Ben Kaplan, YIVO’s director of education, said in a press release.

In a sneak-peek video, Gefilteria founders Liz Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz prepare Classic Chicken Soup and Rustic Matzoh Balls from The Gefilte Manifesto, their 2016 cookbook. While they offer step-by-step instructions on preparation, the pair also debates floaters vs. sinkers, sings the praises of schmaltz, and swaps handy kitchen tips – don’t over-stir that matzoh-ball mix!

The courses launch May 1 at yivo.org/food.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.