What would someone expect to eat in a Jewish household in the US around 1914?

[eyes_of_venom]

Setting: The fanfiction I'm writing is set around 1914 in Manhattan. The main character is an Italian kid. He starts working for a Jewish man, delivering stuff for him. The employer ends up starting to care about the kid when he finds out his father his physically violent with him; he often invites him to have dinner with him and his wife, if only

Comments

[donutgirl]

Just a heads up -- last names don't necessarily tell you that much about where Jewish people are from. I'm a Jew with a German last name, but in fact my family emigrated to the US from Eastern Europe in the late 19th century. Ukraine, Lithuania, Odessa... Many people in my parents' neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY were the same.

I can tell you what my grandmothers cooked for dinner! Stuffed cabbage, cheese blintzes, noodle kugel, chopped liver, gefilte fish, kasha, bagels and lox on the weekend... plus a lot of meat and potatoes (no pork, obviously). My mother likes to joke that my grandmother had NO spices in the house except salt and pepper, and she hardly ever used the pepper. Her cooking was delicious but no complex flavors -- mostly sugar, salt, and schmaltz.

[eyes_of_venom]

Thank you so much! This is really helpful! :D

Yeah, I thought about his last name after I submitted the post and realized I do know some Jewish people from the US who have German last names but are actually of Russian origins, and kinda had a mental: "... oh, wait." /o\
(I guess I keep forgetting to stop thinking like an Italian lol We're definitely not as multicultural a country as the US, and you can tell *exactly* where somebody's family comes from by their last name, over here, sometimes down to the city/town. A lot of Jewish Italian last names in particular are literally the names of either the region or the town their families were from, too.)

[marycatelli]

When we searched for where people with my last name were in Italy, we found they were awfully concentrated.

[eyes_of_venom]

Is you name the one in your username? Because that's definitely a Northern last name. Either from Lombardia or Emilia Romagna.

[dragonbat2006]

Based on some of the books I've read set in that period (All-of-a-Kind Family, among others), everyday food might be hard-boiled egg sandwiches, rye or black bread. Herring, lox or other smoked fish. Egg noodles served in soup or with kasha. Stewed fruit (e.g. compote) for dessert.

[eyes_of_venom]

Thank you for your answer! :D

[aodhankingkiler]

This isn't Jewish specific, and my family's Donauschwaben (German-Hungarian), but goulash and cucumber salad are things that make a regular appearance. I think the goulash may be more of a Eastern European thing, but the cucumber salad is (I have been assured) German.