A Tale of Jewish Grief and Magic & A Recipe to Take the Taste of Grief Out Of Your Mouth

On October 5, 2023, I was leading four younger Jewish herbalists in first person research with Shoah survivors. We sat under a wooden pergola in the shape of a Mogen David at our local Jewish Farm, Urban Adamah, in Berkeley, California.  The elders told us about their plant memories before and during the war, memories of medicine, food and field. We listened and recorded, I spieled and queried.  We fed them a meal, featuring the plants this group had talked to me about 6 months earlier, using published recipes from other survivors.

I don’t have to tell anyone reading this what happened two days later.  

Four days after that, October 11, 2023, I was on deck to co-teach a class about Jewish Magic.  I was planning an overview of Jewish conceptions of magic, with an emphasis on the attendant herbs.  An intellectual assessment of patterns of protection across time and diaspora, with a revered collaborator, Rabbi Jonathan Seidel, who holds a PhD. in Gender, Magic and Politics in the Ancient World.

But everything had changed.  How could I teach the same course?  We didn’t need an intellectual exercise, we needed real Jewish magic. The moment called on me to conjure comfort.

Netanyahu isn’t taking my calls and despite my deep desire, manifesting peace in the Middle East seems to be beyond my pay grade. But as a balebuste, the magic of food seemed more possible.  Could I perform a poppy prestidigitation? Brew some kind of alchemy of plants and protection?  

I reflected on a recent learning about Ashkenazi baking cures. It wasn’t uncommon for the Mother of a sick child to write a prayer, bake it into challah and give the challah to the poor.  Through the act of lovingkindness she transmuted her grief into sustenance for another and, she prayed, into the health of her child. Caring for community is caring for the self. 

Inspired by that lesson and this moment in history, I invented a peace cake. I called on the ancestral plants of poppy and lemon to soothe our shock and uplift us from our despondency. I followed the culinary traditions to the calming custom of boiling the poppy in milk, as is the Ukrainian way. Remembering the antidepressant and anti-anxiety qualities of vanilla (it stimulates the production of serotonin), I added a hefty amount. I wrote on five small pieces of rice paper, as five is the number of protection in both Judaic and Arabic culture. With edible pens I wrote- Shalom (in Hebrew), Salaam (in Arabic) and three images of peace signs. After baking, I gave away the loaves to the homeless community in Oakland, California.  Caring for the community is caring for the self. 

I made more for the family table, and fashioned my challot into peace signs, so we could literally incorporate the peace. Consciously taking in the symbol, willing the transformation from symbol to reality.  By taking this symbol of peace into ourselves, we  create a brief respite from the constant urgent desire for our leaders to fix the situation, rather, we focus on finding our own peace.  By recentering our focus on ourselves, we can renew our resolve to create peace in our own small spheres.  By listening with patient empathetic curiosity to people who see things differently. By reaching out to others and working together to maintain the peace in our own towns..  I wrote down the steps for my students encouraging them to try the recipe, to do the same. And now for you too, something to sweeten your spirit, a recipe to take the taste of grief out of your mouth.

Naomi’s Peace Cake (created by Naomi Stein 10/2023)

If you can swing it, use organic ingredients.  If that’s out of reach financially, the most important items to get organic are dairy and eggs.

• An edible pen (if you can use blue or red ink as these are traditional colors used in Jewish culture for protection)

• Rice paper

• ¾ cup of poppy seeds

• 2 cups of the flour of your choice

• 1 tbs. baking powder

• 1 tsp. baking soda

• 1/2 tsp. salt

• 3 eggs

• 2 sticks butter (or if you want parve, use margarine*) 

• 1 cup sugar

• 2 tsp. vanilla (use the good stuff, feh on artificial)

• ¼ cup lemon juice

• 2 tsp. lemon rind, cut finely

1. Mix ¾ cup of poppy seeds with 1 cup milk and scald, which means to heat it to the point it’s really thinking about boiling and then taking it off of the heat just before that thought is complete.

2. Preheat your oven (basic baking temp., 350 degrees).  Butter your pan - for extra JewJew©, I used a pan in the shape of a Mogen David.  

3. Cream 2 sticks of butter (or butter substitute) with the cup of sugar.

   • (*Listen, about this margarine thing.  I know people who like to eat meat use it to maintain kashrut, but it’s a highly processed food, and I think it can be avoided altogether with meal planning - fruit or chocolate after meat meals and dairy after non-meat meals.  Just something to think about, as a healthy body is best poised to support a healthy mind.).

4. Add 3 eggs, one at a time.  Consider taking the time to slowly stir it all together while humming a niggun. 

5. In another bowl sift a tablespoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of baking soda with ½ tsp. salt and two cups of the flour of your choice.  Add some of the dry stuff to the butter/egg goo, and then some of the milk/poppy infusion, alternating until everything is just mixed. Lastly add all the fragrant parts (lemon juice and rind and vanilla).

6. Bake until golden brown and a skewer comes away clean, about 40 minutes. 

7. Incorporate the peace, share it, give it away.

  

Writing originally published in A Grief Garden. To learn more about the book, contact Dev Brous @dev.brous (she/her pronouns), FromSoil2Soul