'I Still Have Nightmares.' The Dicey Future of Jarred Gefilte Fish
By Lucette Lagnado
The Wall Street Journal
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-still-have-nightmares-the-dicey-future-of-jarred-gefilte-fish-1505748453>

As they float new artisanal recipes, some foodies don't mince words
about the beige dumplings Manischewitz has sold since the 1940s

N"E"W"A"R"K"," "N"."J"." C"a"n" "t"h"i"s" "j"a"r" "o"f" "g"e"f"i"l"t"e"
"f"i"s"h" "b"e" "s"a"v"e"d"?"

A staple of Jewish cuisine, gefilte fish€”Yiddish for stuffed fish€”has
been a fixture for Manischewitz Co., which started selling jars of the
beige dumplings of minced carp, pike and whitefish in the late 1940s.
Families still snap up the jars for holiday dinners, such as Rosh
Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins Wednesday evening.

Traditional jar fans haven't gone away by any means, but times and
tastes have changed. In an artisanal food world, Manischewitz is
struggling to make its shelf-stable product hook a new, more-finicky
generation of eaters.
Among its more promising attempts: gluten-free gefilte fish, a "Premium
Gold" version and a secret variation yet to come.
The emphatic response from Jewish foodies? Don't bother.
"I ate gefilte fish from the jar as a child," says Chanie Apfelbaum, a
gourmet cook and kosher blogger from Brooklyn. "I still have
nightmares."

Ms. Apfelbaum says traditional Jewish foods are making a comeback€”but
the nostalgia doesn't extend to gefilte fish with a four-year pantry
life. She says people have "moved on."

These days, she buys frozen gefilte fish, which she fashions into small
cakes then fries with a crust of panko.

Philadelphia chef Michael Solomonov has offered gefilte fish escabeche
with fiddleheads and artichokes as a Passover special. A Brooklyn
company, the Gefilteria, makes "artisanal gefilte fish" from scratch.
Susie Fishbein, author of books on elegant kosher cooking, has a recipe
for "tri-color gefilte fish" with dill.

"What can you do with a jar of Manischewitz?" Ms. Fishbein says. "I am
sorry, but there is nothing to do€”no magic spice, no magic touch."
She confesses a fondness for the company and once did a TV segment for
Manischewitz's brisket spices. But she isn't touting its gefilte fish.
"If I put a jar of it on my table, no one will even think to open it,"
she says. Her guests would assume it was vintage table decoration.

At the end of the 20th century, Manischewitz was selling 1.5 million
jars of gefilte fish, but in recent years, sales have fallen by about 2%
a year, the company says.

Rabbi Aron Yonah Hayum, who oversees production at Manischewitz, is
trying to help revive gefilte fish's appeal. "To keep the category
alive," he deadpans, "we have to bring it to the 1990s, at least."

The kosher-food company, founded in 1888, has tried to freshen up its
fish before and Rabbi Hayum, a 23-year Manischewitz veteran, can rattle
off every experiment. In the late 1980s, Manischewitz unveiled a salmon
gefilte fish. "They thought that it would generate buzz," he says.

Unfortunately, the industrial cooking process washed out the natural
pink color, he says, and turned the fish an unappetizing shade of gray.
Manischewitz tried jalapeño gefilte fish in the early 1990s, hoping
customers were ready for a zesty flavor. "Not so much," says the rabbi.
Next up was "Mediterranean" gefilte fish, made with rosemary and
oregano. While he liked it, the product had a weird look, Rabbi Hayum
says. "We put real spices and you could see little green dots and
stems," floating through the jar. "Too wacko."

Rabbi Hayum is an avid collector of company memorabilia. Items line his
office and grace glass cases in the company's halls€”from a canvas
"Borscht belt" with names of old Catskill hotels, to a Roberta Flack
record album, signed "To Manischewitz with Love." There is also a jar
containing a "loaf" of gefilte fish the company once tried to market. It
was a no-go.

European Jewish immigrants brought the specialty with them to America.
Making it from scratch meant securing live fish€”which homemakers parked
in the bathtub€”that had to be killed, deboned, minced and seasoned.
"Gefilte fish took a whole day to make, and Jewish women had carefully
made it in Europe," says Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish
history at Brandeis University.

When Manischewitz began mass-producing its gefilte fish, it was embraced
by homemakers seeking relief from the arduous preparation.
The jar, says Prof. Sarna, was "a metaphor for America itself€”Jewish
women no longer had to slave all day long."

Now consumers have gravitated from the jar to frozen gefilte fish, which
yields a cream-colored loaf.

The frozen version lets cooks be creative, Prof. Sarna says. "You might
patschke [fuss] with it a little bit. The frozen gefilte fish allowed
you to add some of your own carrots, some of your own spices, and it
didn't take very long."

The Gefilteria's co-owners Liz Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz suggest a
return to pre-jar days. It is far less labor-intensive to make gefilte
fish now, Ms. Alpern says, with one of their recipes taking 1 1/2 hours
at most. And, she adds, no need to store fish in a bathtub. Buy fish
filets and use a food processor.

Some of Manischewitz's innovations have worked. Rabbi Hayum says the
gluten-free gefilte fish, which uses potato starch instead of matzo
meal, is popular, as is the Premium Gold variety, which uses less carp
and more whitefish. He says Manischewitz is hoping to try its new secret
variation in the spring.

The company says it sells 1.2 million jars annually, retailing from
$6.26 to $8.99 for the 24-ounce jar.

Rabbi Hayum knows keeping the jar alive is an uphill battle. But he
believes it is important. For many American Jews, he says, the jar of
gefilte fish on the supermarket shelf "is their last connection to
Judaism."

Manischewitz, now part of Bain Capital Credit after churning through
several owners, recently laid off workers and said it would manufacture
products, including gefilte fish, in other facilities. David Sugarman,
CEO, said Manischewitz was taking "necessary steps to preserve and
position the business" to grow "over the next 129 years."

Karen Blum, of Westlake Village, Ca., answered an online Facebook survey
by Manischewitz on gefilte fish. She recalled how after she had her
tonsils removed as a four-year-old, she refused any nourishment, even
ice cream and Jell-O. Instead, she says, "I pointed to the jar of
gefilte fish."

She says she still favors the version from the jar: "It is the ultimate
Jewish comfort food."

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 23:19:02 +0200, (Victor Sack)
wrote:

>'I Still Have Nightmares.' The Dicey Future of Jarred Gefilte Fish
> By Lucette Lagnado
> The Wall Street Journal
><https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-still-have-nightmares-the-dicey-future-of-jarred-gefilte-fish-1505748453>
>
>As they float new artisanal recipes, some foodies don't mince words
>about the beige dumplings Manischewitz has sold since the 1940s
>
>N"E"W"A"R"K"," "N"."J"." C"a"n" "t"h"i"s" "j"a"r" "o"f" "g"e"f"i"l"t"e"
>"f"i"s"h" "b"e" "s"a"v"e"d"?"
>
>A staple of Jewish cuisine, gefilte fish—Yiddish for stuffed fish—has
>been a fixture for Manischewitz Co., which started selling jars of the
>beige dumplings of minced carp, pike and whitefish in the late 1940s.
>Families still snap up the jars for holiday dinners, such as Rosh
>Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins Wednesday evening.
>
>Traditional jar fans haven't gone away by any means, but times and
>tastes have changed. In an artisanal food world, Manischewitz is
>struggling to make its shelf-stable product hook a new, more-finicky
>generation of eaters.


Jarred gefilte fish is the reason horseradish is so very necessary at
a seder.