When
Where
Manchester Jewish Museum Learning Kitchen
Fee
Free, email gemma@manchesterjewishmuseum.com to join
Our Foodie Group will reconnect in the new year by exploring what foods symbolise luck, money, longevity and hopes for a promising new year! We will learning about food traditions from cultures all across the globe – from keeping fish scales in your wallet to long, lucky noodles!
In this cooking workshop we will be reading excerpts from Barbara Cohen’s charming family book ‘The Carp in the Bathtub’. We’ll be learning all about the remarkable tradition of keeping a carp in a bath-tub for Passover in some Jewish cultures, or for Christmas Eve Dinner in parts of Eastern Europe. The scales of the carp are said to bring luck across the year if you carry them with you.
Don’t worry, there will be no live fish harmed in our cooking activity as we make seven vegetable couscous together. This is a traditional dish eaten by Jewish communities in Morocco and North Africa on Rosh Hashanah. Each of the tiny couscous grains represent a wish for a year filled with countless blessings.
There will be chances to share your own New Year food traditions with the group – whether it’s Rosh Hashanah or the 1st January.
Our workshops are informal, chatty and a chance to meet new people as well as learn about new recipes and cooking traditions.
Seven vegetable couscous, image courtesy of NYT Cooking
What you need to know
The workshop lasts 2 hours in total and we can’t guarantee that we will be able to accommodate latecomers.
If you would like to take part in the workshop, please sign emailing gemma@manchesterjewishmuseum.com. You will then be invited to join our Foodie Group.
Places are limited so we recommend emailing Gemma in advance to book your place.
All recipes used in the workshop are vegetarian and use kosher ingredients.
About Barbara Cohen’s ‘The Carp in the Bathtub’
Written by Barbara Cohen and illustrated by Joan Halpern, this classic story takes readers back to a time when families made gefilte fish from scratch – and tender-hearted children got emotionally attached to the ingredients! Originally published in 1972, the book is fast approaching its 40th anniversary of being one of the most loved children’s books in Jewish culture.
