The Kosher Baking Story
Author: Daniel Wiesz

Baking has always been a big thing for humans, bread is
considered to be the most elementary of foods, eating bread to
break ones hunger is the most basic way of survival. The making
of bread is very different from culture to culture, and as men
started to migrate and met other like him in different parts of
the world the cooking and baking changed forever, because of
this mixture of tastes and flavors we enjoy many diverse
kitchens and ways of cooking today.

The Jewish people have traveled long, it is in the dramatic and
tragic story of this people that they have been moved from their
country and forced to travel around the world, but surprisingly
the Jewish way of cooking has not changed much, probably due to
the segregate nature of the Jewish nation.

The Challa is a kind of bread that is traditionally eaten on
the eve of Friday, this kind of bread is associated with the
traditional Shabbat food and the Shabbat cooking, to further
explain this you will need to know that religious Jewish people
do not cook on Shabbat, they can not light a fire or do any kind
of work, so all the food for the traditional family dinner at
the evening of Friday has to be prepared in advance.

The preparation of the Challa is no different, many traditions
dictate different strategies for the preparation of the Challa,
some start the mixture of the flour and the ingredients early on
Friday morning and others prefer to prepare the whole thing on
Thursday lunch, following the old saying that the Challa is at
its prime once it has aged for two whole days.

For all that can be said about the way different people cook is
that it is always different, and one will not adopt the other
ones way simply because it is not his way, everyone sticks to
his own personal way, and in fact all this does not have a big
effect on the real basics of the challa making, it is just
little changes that create the diversity in food from one place
to the other.

The whole procedure of making Kosher food is very complicated,
it gets more and more complicated as the level of the Kosher is
increasing, kosher baking is the same and has to follow the same
rules, some of the kosher rules are very physical and do not
allow to mix one ingredient with the other, and some are much
more spiritual and social like making sure that some of the
flour has been deducted for the poor and needy.

Kosher baking is not difficult and in fact, once you give it a
go you will not feel that there is any difference than any
other way of baking, except if you are usually using livestock
fat or things like this you will probably not notice anything
that is special about the baking, except if the baker like to
sing some Hasidic songs while he is working.

Try some Jewish cooking, it will certainly make a change in
your dinner, and if you are making a Challa, try and serve it
to your family on the evening of Friday, after all it is meant
to be enjoyed with the whole family around the table and in the
spirit of love and peace.


About The Author: Daniel Wiesz is a kosher baker, a
professional in baking and bakery consulting, Daniel has
recently started to publish his recipes and his unique baking
stories and philosophy at http://kosherbreadpro.com/