A tale of two cholents

Fusion needn't obscure the essence of a dish

When I propose the question ‘is Ashkenazi food truly, inherently unsexy?’ I have many things in mind, but the thought of cholent, or  tshulnt – to use a more accurate and aesthetically pleasing romanization of the Yiddish – rings the loudest. Yes, it sounds far from appetizing. Thick and tawny, it doesn’t look appetizing either. 

And yet, how I loved it growing up. I never had it at home, as it is a far cry from my mum’s cooking style. She likes fresh and fragrant – cholent is deep and unctuous. Grandma never made it either, perhaps because it’s the quintessential shabbat lunch dish, and this wasn’t something we did. I only ate it occasionally, and naturally it retained its sense of occasion. At one friend’s house – probably the place I ate it most – I recall the anticipation felt as the bovine aromas filled the kitchen, which had to be passed through on the way to the dining room – knowing I’d have to wait for kiddush and starters before the taste of cholent could greet my palate. 

To the cholent virgins, if it’s starting to sound more appealing, some words of advice: it is likely to disappoint at first sight. Combining starchy beans and barley with slow-cooked brisket and potato, it can coagulate into a sludge, even with the most well-meaning precautions taken to avoid that. I discovered this recently at Indig’s Bakery in Stamford Hill, which is a must-visit for its superb cinnamon, chocolate and vanilla rugelach (see Adrienne Katz’s London Rugelach Index in Vittles), but also, it turns out, a place to give cholent a go. Next to the till, there is  

HOT

CHOLENT

ON THE BOTTOM SHELF

The only way this could entice you is if you’re blessed with memories of the dish’s pleasures, for some of the rectangle cards covering the cholents had begun to absorb an unappealing hue of grease. 

Removing the card, it was immediately obvious that the cholent had compacted to the point of taking the shape of the foil container. This was a meatless cholent, served in a milky bakery (observant Jews keep meat and milk separate), so it is heavy on the beans: kidney, haricot, and possibly cannellini too, though they had turned brown if so. It is sweet with the juices of caramelized onion, but balanced, enticingly, by the strong flavour of black pepper. In fact, what it nails is the sweet spot where pepperiness meets sweetness, an invariably moreish feat. Most of all, though, it is beany. Cholent is beany. Perhaps so much so that the meat is almost a side hustle to the main affair, even when included. The Cholent Connoisseur would disagree, but this vegetarian version is undoubtedly cholenty in its essence. 

Some weeks later, I would encounter another cholent. This was my first experience of the food of Wilde’s Deli, a new concept from Ollie Gratter, offering a ‘contemporary Jew(ish)’ take on Ashkenazi deli food. Currently a portable business, he’s been offering the likes of reubens, latkes, and bagels with schmear across south London in multiple pop-ups. This was his first supper club; an opportunity to push the contemporary and the ish to new heights. Teaming up with Finlay Logan of Burnt  on Askew Road, west London, in a series of four Friday night dinners, the evening was full of many highs – food I’m going to be revisiting again and again no doubt (see here for a short overview of the meal) – but the final savoury course of five promised to hit my nostalgia buttons the hardest. 

The ‘sukiyaki cholent’ arrived at the table. A small bowl on the right with a relatively light broth, a confit egg yolk and enoki mushrooms floating at the top. On the left was some perfectly pink roast beef. Excited by the look of the meat, I was nonetheless initially sceptical, and when I first dipped the beef in the bowl, I did not find cholent. I was immediately enjoying the dish, but my heart had been promised cholent.

I soon learnt that the small bowl was deceiving, as though its circumference wasn’t big, it had depth. Surprises were to be found underneath. First, a potato, and then a butter bean, and then, crucially, barley. I’d forgotten about the importance of barley in cholent! The dish had transmogrified, and my brain had now registered it as cholent. The beany, barley flavour of the broth – which had thickened as the yolk melted into the broth – filled me with joy and memories of teenagehood. 

No amount of Japanese flavours could take me away from that,  though I did feel some tender brisket and marrows bones would have worked better than roast beef – not just because they’re cuts you’d find in a cholent, but also because the umami of the sukiyaki seasonings would have worked better with them, and both cholent and sukiyaki are conventionally one-pot dishes. Then again, the thrill of learning to notice the cholentism of the dish may not have occured in a wide-rimmed bowl where everything is as it appears. 

Neither cholents were authentically cholent. One was adapted in its cultural context to an easy lunch dish that can be enjoyed without the sanctity of shabbat, and the other thoroughly hybrid, a dish demonstrating the “vindication for fusion” and the discovery of “unlikely commonality,” as Danny Chau puts it in his defense of “blasphemous fusion food” in The New Yorker.

As a sum of four parts: brisket, barley, bean, peppery seasoning, it would seem the successful coming together of at least two elements can take you to cholent. Purists would undoubtedly object, and I am not sure whether memories of the dish in its traditional form would be required to get this, but if food is to evolve, adaptation and hybridization are inevitable, especially in urban contexts (in fact, south Williamsburg in New York City is home to Shalom Japan, a restaurant devoted entirely to Japanese-Jewish fusion food).

I’ve never made cholent, so my first attempt will be extremely classic, but I’ll remember this formula going forward. I’ll probably start calling it tshlunt, too.