Keeping it Kosher
Don Siegel lingered in the kitchen – disgusted by his Nanjing duck.
It’s not that the meal he had just cooked was terrible. But soon approximately 40 hungry guests would be awaiting a feast – and since it was a Chinese couple to be married in the Siegel’s home in the upcoming days – those guests were anticipating a genuine East Asian dinner.
And that’s exactly what the Syracuse University earth science professor intended to give them.
Siegel scoffs at the idea of cooking Americanized dishes like sweet and sour chicken. He chooses to stay away from that Kung Pao Chicken garbage. Same for General Tso’s. No, Siegel prefers the real stuff.
So he tossed aside duck number one and started on his second attempt, hoping to perfect that precise flavor.
The 60-year-old Siegel knew if he didn’t, his guests would detect it – especially since the parents of the bride and groom had flown in from Nanjing, China for the ceremony.
Li Jin, the bride and graduate student at SU, remembers her parents puzzled reaction to the news Siegel would not only be hosting the reception for Jin and Zunli Lu, but serving up a home-cooked Chinese meal.
‘Wait a minute, your adviser – your, like, geology professor?’ asked her parents.
Yep.
The towering, Jewish hydrogeology expert with a graying beard – who had never been to China until two years ago -claimed to know his Nanjing duck.
Soon he had the second edition of his duck on a platter. Siegel even had Jin’s father place slices of the cured, salted duck on cucumber wedges.
The bonding was nice, Jin said. But devouring the duck was even better.
‘They said that ‘It was great,’ and they just wolfed it down,’ Siegel said. ‘That was my most nervous (moment). In fact, that’s the only time in a long time I made large qualities of food then tasted it, and I said ‘Nope not right,’ and I threw it out or put it in the freezer for another time, and I started again because I wanted to get this one right.’
Siegel turned his Chinese cooking hobby into a second career. He now cooks for hundreds at banquets hosted by Temple Beth Sholom-Chevra, published a cookbook filled with Kosher Chinese recipes and he’s now pulled off his own Chinese wedding – complete with spiced beef, tofu meals and the duck.
The professor acknowledges a connection between the two cultures – Jewish and Chinese. And food has always been a big part of it. That’s why he titled his cookbook ‘From Lokshen to Lo Mein: The Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food.’
On the inside flap reads a classic quip: ‘Chinese history dates back about 5,000 years, and Jewish culture dates back about 6,000 years. The question is, how could the Jews survive for the first thousand years without Chinese food?’
That joke about Jews’ eternal obsession with Chinese food might never get old in the temple community. But for Siegel, his love affair with Chinese food started 32 years ago – in 1976.
Siegel was looking to cure his wife’s nausea. Bette was feeling the side effects of being pregnant with the couple’s first son. Her husband, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, searched for a quick and simple remedy. A Chinese friend of his offered up a chicken stew with ginger.
Bette’s queasiness evaporated. Her husband’s passion for Chinese cuisine blossomed.
‘I had never had Chinese food like that before,’ Siegel said. ‘So I asked (my friend) about it, and he started telling me what real Chinese food is. And not the type we get mostly in America, which is Chinese-American food.’
Those meals, to Siegel, are Chicken McNuggets with hot, sweet sauce. The authentic food featured strong flavors and eliminated the thick gooey sauces. Siegel wanted to discover how to make that food.
His journey began in the back alleys. No more mainstream Chinese eateries. While attending earth science conferences in New York City and San Francisco, Siegel ventured to the restaurants off the beaten path. Even when the language barrier got in the way, the professor would pantomime questions and constantly nod his head to show he understood the inner workings of the dish before him. Through observing and, of course, tasting, Siegel began to figure out the keys to Chinese cooking.
A trick of the trade for any aspiring Chinese food cook is to ask for the real ‘Chinese menu’ – with goodies intended for patrons of actual Chinese descent – instead of what Siegel dismisses as phony Chinese-American menus.
In Syracuse, he regularly visits China Road and the restaurant’s master chef, Simon Teng. Teng – who once cooked for Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai, when the People’s Republic of China leader visited the United States – cooks up any plate Siegel asks him to make. Just by sampling the meal and questioning Teng on his technique, Siegel would formulate his own recipe for the meal.
‘He knows what is Chinese, what is Chinese-American.’ Teng said. ‘He knows. It doesn’t surprise. He knows a lot of authentic things.’
Those skills Siegel picked up started paying off on a large scale in the early 1990s.
Siegel, who moved to Syracuse in 1982, had grown sick of these monthly meals at Temple Beth Sholom-Chevra.
No more Kosher barbeque chicken dinners at family Sabbath dinner. Enough bland chicken was enough.
So Rabbi Daniel Jazer proposed a challenge to Siegel during a series of Sabbaths in which temple members would be creating various cuisines: Make something new.
Said Siegel: ‘So that was my first time I actually started cooking really, truly Kosher Chinese.’
Growing up in an Orthodox home, Siegel’s family would often attend Chinese restaurants when eating out. There was no safer alternative for Kosher meals – food that conformed Jewish dietary laws.
At these restaurants, it was easy to find menu items that didn’t involve pork or seafood. And it was rare for Chinese cooks to mix milk and meat products in a dish. Plus, Jews felt an odd type of acceptance in these places, Siegel said. In the melting pot of New York City, Jewish people on the Lower East Side rarely worried of violence in Chinatown – a more common threat in other areas of the city.
‘Chinese have never persecuted Jews for their religion,’ Siegel said. ‘Historically, they’ve embraced it.’
He pauses in his office in Heroy Auditorium, trying to think of one more reason why Jews appreciate Chinese food.
‘And also it tastes good.’
The congregation at the Temple Beth Sholom-Chevra learned that quickly. Free authentic Chinese banquets would turn into the synagogue’s newest ritual. Bette Siegel also chipped in with her own cooking skills. The temple’s official caterer, presented her patented challah bread and desserts. Together, the couple makes for a powerful one-two punch to the stomach.
‘We asked him to repeat it the following year,’ Jazer said. ‘And it grew until a traditional Saturday night event.’
The Rabbi’s wife even bought the temple’s star chef the ‘mother of all woks’ to use. The giant Chinese cooking pan – along with Siegel’s expert knife skills – would be the professor’s primary weapons in satisfying the 100 to 150 congregants who crowded each banquet.
Even after 15 years of developing a routine – in one of his more recent banquets Siegel did the entire meal on crutches after undergoing knee surgery – Siegel explained the temple’s commercial kitchen can still look like a frenzied mess when it’s game time. He does as much preparation as possible in the days before a banquet. And usually he has three teenage assistants on the day of the big show.
Still, cuts and burns come with the job. As does overcooking food – or just plain forgetting about some fried chicken wings in the oven. He said his earth science skills occasionally come in handy, ‘particularly when things go wrong.’ For instance, when a sauce curdles, he knows the proper chemical and culinary reaction to make it uncurdle.
The worst incidence in the kitchen came as the result of a brand new cleaver. A distraction resulted in Siegel chopping off the tip of one of his fingers.
To stop the bleeding, a doctor covered the appendage in a nifty Styrofoam-like bandage. The hemorrhaging stopped instantly. Siegel was ready to return to the kitchen when a new complication arose. The material on his finger was
He called over the Rabbi, gestured at his finger and explained the problem.
‘She just laughed and walked away,’ Siegel said.
Eventually, Siegel aced enough recipes to create a cookbook. After shopping around the idea for a while, he finally found a taker. Siegel said it’s tough for non-celebrities to get recipes published since cookbooks seldom make money.
Fortunately for the professor, he had carved his own niche into cookbook genre. A Chinese Kosher recipe book that also delves into the connection between the two cultures found its sponsor, naturally, in Israel with the Gefen Publishing Company.
‘While Jews are known for their love for food and the connection of each and every holiday to (each) culinary aspect – Kosher Chinese – brings yet another dimension to Jewish wining and dining,’ said Ilan Greenfield, the book’s publisher, in an e-mail.
The book, published in 2006, has been profitable for the publisher, Siegel said. It sold moderately well – about 2,000 to 3,000 copies. And most impressive, it finished runner-up for an international award given to the best Asian cookbook.
Siegel regretted that the book – which received rave reviews from the Jewish community – never broke into the mainstream. The key to breaking into the culinary scene is a New York Times book review or a guest spot on a national talk show. Despite lobbying, he could not obtain either of those opportunities. Although, he did receive an interview on National Public Radio’s talk of the town and Siegel had the chance to hock his book on Syracuse’s talk shows.
Of course, Chinese cooking remains a labor of love for Siegel even without the nationwide attention.
He took a risk when touring with his book by opting to provide an actual cooking demonstration at every stop along the circuit. Siegel averted disaster everywhere along the way. He even MacGyver-ed his way out of one situation.
At one temple, he stared into a kitchen that contained only a paring knife, frying pan and a pot. It also lacked volunteers. Waiting on that particular day’s menu was a lunch for 50 eager patrons. Using washed out garbage cans to hold the food and torn-up towels from the upstairs gym to hold the boiling hot pots, Siegel managed a gourmet meal.
Despite the inconveniences, that’s the rush Siegel loves. And why he intends to keep cooking for large audiences for as long as he can.
‘The synagogue turns into an upscale kitchen basically, and I’m the head chef,’ Siegel said. ‘It gives me the sense of what it’s like to be a head chef, high adrenaline, running back and forth, finishing sauces, plating the food. Just like what goes on in a restaurant.’
He plans to go to China on a geology grant in the next couple years, researching and trying to understand the pollution problems facing the land. As expected, Siegel would use this opportunity to take advantage of both his professional love and slightly obsessive hobby. Li Jin already has plans to send Siegel through a Chinese language crash course during the summer.
That way when he arrives, Siegel will have no trouble sneaking off in search of Chinese foods that might taste even better with a dash of Kosher added to it. And Siegel might even be relishing the reactions he’ll receive when he proves to a country of one billion -yes, this geochemist – has a couple culinary tricks up his sleeve.
‘Most people when they hear I hear cook Chinese food they are very surprised,’ Siegel said. ‘They’re generally skeptical. And then whey they taste it, they say this is very good. That’s a tremendous compliment.’
SIDEBAR
Don Siegel and his wife participate in a fundraiser at the local Hebrew day school. Siegel, a Syracuse earth science professor and accomplished Chinese Kosher food cook, donates 12-course Chinese dinners, and these meals often go for more than $1,000.
‘I had no idea what he was going to serve,’ said Jackie Goldberg, who recently won a bid for one of Siegel’s dinners. ‘No idea it would be this much food. Everything was a small tasting of something.’
Goldberg described servings upon servings of lotus root, Chinese apple orange salad, shredded chicken with peanut sauce, roasted baby bok choy and more that stuffed each of the eight guests.
One of her favorites was the Shanghai soup-filled dumplings – which are exactly what they sound like. The floury spheres sit in an empty soup bowl. But Goldberg warns that one should put the entire dumpling in their mouth. One false bite and broth squirts across the table.
Here’s a look at the Chinese Kosher spread the Jackie and Neil Goldberg and company devoured.
Chefs Don and Bette Siegel’s 12-course feast:
Published on April 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm
