''Kashe varnishkes'' (sometimes Americanized as ''kasha varnishkas'') is a traditional dish of the American-Jewish Ashkenazi community. It combines ''

kasha In English, kasha usually refers to the pseudocereal buckwheat or its culinary preparations. In Slavic languages, "kasha" means porridge or puree. In some varieties of Eastern European cuisine, ''kasha'' can apply to any kind of cooked grain. I ...

'' (buckwheat

groats Groats (or in some cases, "berries") are the hulled kernels of various cereal grains, such as oats, wheat, rye, and barley. Groats are whole grains that include the cereal germ and fiber-rich bran portion of the grain, as well as the endos ...

) with noodles, typically bow-tie shape ''

lokshen Lokshen (, ), also known as (), locshen, lockshen, or Jewish egg noodles, is the common name of a range of Ashkenazi Jewish egg noodles that are commonly used in a variety of Jewish dishes including chicken soup, kugel, kasha varnishkes, lokshen ...

'' egg noodles. Buckwheat groats (''gretshkes/greytshkelach'' or ''retshkes/reytshkelach'' in

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

) are prepared separately from, and then fried together with, ''

'' and ''tsvibelach'' (

onions An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classified ...

) in ''

schmaltz Schmaltz (also spelled schmalz or shmalz) is rendered (clarified) chicken or goose fat. It is an integral part of traditional Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, where it has been used for centuries in a wide array of dishes, such as chicken soup, l ...

'' (poultry fat). Sometimes ''briye'' (chicken or beef

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

) is used in the preparation.

Origins

''Kasha varnishkes'' are part of the cuisine introduced as

Ashkenazi Jewish Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...

communities of Eastern Europe fled Europe due to rising antisemitism and

pogroms A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century attacks on Jews i ...

and sought refuge in the United States and other countries. They brought with them food of their tradition including ''kasha varnishkes'' to America, and it became widely popular in the

American Jewish cuisine American Jewish cuisine comprises the food, cooking, and dining customs associated with American Jews. It was heavily influenced by the cuisine of Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Eastern Europe around the turn of the 20th cent ...

and community. The name and the dish ''varnishkes'' as a whole seems to be a Yiddish adaptation of the Ukrainian ''vareniki'' (''

varenyky Pierogi ( ; ) are filled dumplings made by wrapping unleavened dough around a filling and cooked in boiling water. They are occasionally flavored with a savory or sweet garnish. Typical fillings include potato, cheese, quark, sauerkraut ...

'', stuffed dumplings). Buckwheat came to Ukraine and became one of the most common fillings of Ukrainian dumplings. This dish was enhanced by emigrating

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

in the Ashkenazic manner. One of the first records of the dish is in an 1898 Yiddish play ''Die Mumeh Sosye'' (Aunt Sosya) by

Abraham Goldfaden Abraham Goldfaden (; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in Yiddish and Hebrew languages and author of some 40 plays. Goldfad ...

. A recipe published in a Yiddish American cookbook in 1925 shows ''kashe''-filled noodles or dumplings, rather than the simpler ''kashe'' with ''farfalle''. Food writer Gil Marks proposes that the dish was developed in New York City in the late nineteenth century through cultural exchange with Italian pasta makers. An increase in access to and ease of using dried pasta by the mid-twentieth century also likely contributed to a shift to the now standard ''farfalle''.

References

External links

Kasha varnishkas

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kasha Varnishkas Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine Buckwheat dishes Jewish noodle dishes

Origins

See also

References

External links