Just in time for Hanukkah this year, I'm going to look at the chocolatey offerings in Jamie Felt's cookbook,
Kosher Cookbook for the Family which came out in 2021 from Rockridge Press. Your Chocolate Priestess is not Jewish but she has friends who are and they do love chocolate, so I was curious as to whether or not this cookbook would have chocolate recipes that might satisfy them. I'll reveal that later on. For now, let's get the legal out of the way. The publisher sent me a free paperback copy of this cookbook in the hopes that I would write a review of it online at various bookstores; this blog post is a bonus review. No other form of compensation was received for this article or those reviews.
Yes, there is chocolate in this cookbook! Specifically there are eight recipes that call for using pareve, bittersweet, or dark chocolate depending on the recipe. In the case of chocolate it may seem odd to some of that you would label chocolate as pareve, meaning it contains neither meat nor dairy ingredients, but it is important if you are following Kashrūt or Krosher law. The chocolate recipes fell into two categories: Breakfast (chapter 2) and Breads, Pastries, and Desserts (chapter 7). I was surprised that cocoa powdered was never an ingredient because that would be easily be a pareve food, wouldn't it? I hope if someone out there can correct me on that, that you will do so in a comment.
Actually my favorite part of the book was the the first chapter. As you can see in the table of contents, the first chapter is all about what Kosher is and how it can be done at home. For someone who is not Jewish this answered a lot of questions that I have had but which I may not have felt feel to ask my Jewish friends. I'm not part of their families or their religions, so I'm visiting with them on their holy days or festivals usually. I don't normally ask friends inquiring questions about their houses or kitchens when I visit unless I'm offered something to eat or drink there. Author Jamie Felt did a good job explaining things in a accessible manner to me in that first chapter.
I am curious to learn what others who have used this cookbook feel about it. Please do learn comments and let me know.
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