Jewish food is so evocative of culture, family, memories and connection. Throughout the Jewish Diaspora, we have been adopting, adapting and creating dishes that meet our spiritual, cultural and physical needs by blending tradition with local resources. The resulting dishes can be as different as gefilte fish (Eastern European poached white fish balls) and chraime (spicy North African fish stew) and yet still serve the same purpose (in this case, a starter for Shabbat and holiday meals).

One way we really see this is in the wide-ranging types of charoset, the Passover Seder staple which represents the bricks and mortar the Jewish slaves used to build the pyramids in Egypt. It is a paste or dip usually containing nuts and fruit that differs by the customs and preferences of Jewish communities. I always provide a sampling of these symbolic dips at my international Passover cooking workshops for Hadassah chapters and other groups and teach everyone how to make them.

The concept of charoset is ancient, going back to Greco-Roman times, when it was customary to eat greens with a dip. Originally, the karpas (greens) and the maror (bitter herbs) were dipped in the charoset. Nowadays, most traditions just combine the sweet charoset with the bitter herbs. In addition, there is the “Hillel sandwich”(maror and charoset in between two pieces of matzah), which we traditionally eat to honor the ancient sage Hillel, who combined these........

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