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Cholent
Appears in
By Jayne Cohen
Published 2000
Call it cholent, shalet, dafina, hamin, s’keena, tabit: Nearly every Jewish community in the Diaspora has come up with a version, or several, of this quintessential Jewish dish. It is a one-pot hot meal— meats, vegetables, legumes, and/or grains are all cooked together in a casserole—traditionally prepared on Friday afternoon and left to simmer very slowly in the oven until the Saturday midday meal.
These casseroles were created to solve a singularly Jewish problem: how to honor the Sabbath lunch with hot foods when no fires may be kindled—or ovens lit—after sundown on Friday. (The Jewish Sabbath, like all Jewish days, begins with sunset and ends the following evening. “And there was evening and there was morning: the first day,” says Genesis 1:5.)