Jewish food is making a comeback with the help of Gefilteria, which brings Old World food into New York of the twenty-first century. The minds behind this start-up – Jacqueline Lilinshtein, New Voices alum Elizabeth Alpern, and Jeffrey Yoskowitz – aim to help revive a tradition that, when done right, doesn’t remain in the 1800s, but embodies the delicious and full-flavored cuisine of Ashkenazi food today. The result is a variety of gourmet dishes with one foot in Eastern Europe and the other in New York City.
This project was originally the brainchild of Jeffrey, a pickler, who soon brought on food consultant Liz, as well as Jackie, a graduate student at Columbia University getting a masters in energy and the environment, to help with various aspects of the business. Currently, the trio are selling their goods online at Gefilteria.com – be sure to check out their Passover offerings for the upcoming holiday – but hope to acquire both a push chart from which to vend items and to sell their goods in gourmet groceries.
On a warm March night at Café Smooch in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Gefilteria brought out some of its signature dishes for guests to savor. First up was a gorgeous bowl of borscht, its rich magenta hue tempting the tastebuds, that the servers finished off with a dollop of crème fraîche. Gefilteria’s version of this traditional Eastern European beet soup sated the sweet and savory side sides of diners’ palates. Jackie described the borscht recipe as one that the Gefilteria team, herself in particular, worked on tirelessly. Eaters scooped up the last bits of borscht with slabs of thick, fresh pumpernickel bread, which they then slathered with creamy yellow butter.
Next up was the kraut, which Jeffrey makes himself. The lacto-fermented kraut contains all-natural ingredients and was fermented in salt, not vinegar; it also comes in two varieties: garlic and mustard. Let’s not forget Gefilteria’s namesake: the gefilte fish. Though few still keep live carp in their tubs to make gefilte fish, Gefilteria has managed to take a seemingly outdated food and revivify it. Guests gobbled down their pieces of gefilte, which, like all of Gefilteria’s dishes, is made from only kosher ingredients, but not in a hekshered kitchen.
To wash down the food, Gefilteria provided kvass, a fermented beet drink. They offered up several varieties, including an alcoholic martini version, which was comprised of the kvass, seltzer water, vodka, agave syrup, and mint, as well as a nonalcoholic ginger kvass. To end the evening on a light note, Gefilteria served a simple, but elegant, version of a classic desert: the black-and-white cookie. The moist cookie and sweet icings blended to perfection in diners’ mouths as they savored the last bits of their meal.
