My Jewishness is fraught with complexities and contradictions.
Raised without any religion in the North London suburb of Finchley in post-war Britain, it was white-bread, white-collar and Anglo-Saxon all the way. (This is not the case today, I’ve noted on recent visits, in a neighbourhood where kebab shops, curry houses and the Tally Ho! pub rub shoulders in a somewhat seedy multicultural mix).
When a reader of this blog e-mailed me with a question about my recipe for Jewish Chicken Soup – the best medicine I know for whatever ails body or soul – we had an exchange about the source of that recipe: my esteemed colleague and longtime restaurant critic for the Globe & Mail, Joanne Kates.
Believe it or not, until now, I had never made authentic, Jewish-style chicken soup. But when a dear friend returned home from several months in hospital, having lost weight and in a weakened condition, I decided this was the time to cook up a batch of this beautiful broth with scientifically proven health benefits that, I believe, come from nutrients in the chicken’s bones.
