Cookbook Club

Cookbook Review: Kugels & Collards

By: Amber Chase
Kugels & Collards Barnett and Harvey cover

A favorite pastime with my mother is visiting local antique stores and rummaging through treasures and relics. During these excursions, we often come across church-wide cookbooks, typically hand-bound books with quick drawn illustrations and recipes attributed to different congregant members, and we recognize them as sacred snapshots of a community. Kugels & Collards: Stories of Food, Family, and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina (© 2023 Rachel Gordin Barnett and Lyssa Kligman Harvey) holds this same communal intimacy. 

The foreword opens with a quote from Michael Twitty, “Food is an archive, a keeper of secrets.” And truly, Rachel Gordin Barnett and Lyssa Kligman Harvey have laced together a historical and delicious compendium of southern Jewish recipes spanning generations throughout North and South Carolina. There’s something delicate and hallowed about making a recipe that was found tucked away in an attic, the last remnant of a beloved family member’s handwriting. A deep sense of pride in having a recipe coined by your own name, i.e. “Ethel Glover’s Squash Casserole” or “Debby Harrison’s Boreka.” It’s a transcendent act of preservation to hold and share recipes that have survived decades past our oldest relatives, and, for many, this is how tradition, culture, and family heritage endure. 

Join the Cookbook Club

lock

Members Only Content

This page is for Cookbook Club members only.

If you are a member, please sign in and try again.

If you are not a member, click the button below to sign up.

Join the club
Date Published: 09.10.23
user-profile-placeholder
About The Author

Amber Chase

Amber Chase brings a breadth of food knowledge, a hearty work ethic, and a very high gluten tolerance to her role as Digital Editor for The Local Palate. Her other full-time gig is parenting her daughter, Nova, who will no doubt grow to be her superior.

trending content

More From Cookbook Club