The Spoon

Cheese Blintz, Montana Blintz

The 2-day Jewish Biblical Festival of Shavuot (shuh-VOO-oht) commemorates the day when G-d gave the Jewish people the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) following Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai. This year, Shavuot will occur from sundown, Thursday, May 28 through sundown, Saturday, May 30 on the civil calendar.

Shavuot (Lev. 21:15-16, 21) occurs each year 7 weeks from the second Seder of the Jewish Biblical Festival of Passover. This explains the name “Shavuot” — which is Hebrew for weeks. If you count from one day earlier, from the first Seder of the Festival of Passover, there are 50 days, or as it’s known in Greek — Pentecost, meaning the fiftieth day. (Pentecost is what Christians call their celebration 50 days after Easter Sunday that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the followers of Jesus of Nazareth on that day. Pentecost is also called “Whitsun” or “WhitSunday” in the UK and other English-speaking areas.)

The Shavuot synagogue service includes the reading of the Book of Ruth and the “Akadamot”. The Book of Ruth is the story of Ruth, a Moabite woman, who voluntarily chose Judaism and because of her kindness, became the great-grandmother of King David (and for Christians, the ancestor of Jesus of Nazareth), and who is said to have been born on and died on Shavuot. The other book that is read is the “Akdamot”, written in Aramaic by Rabbi Meir ben Isaac of Worms, Germany in the eleventh century C.E., which describes what it will be like during the days of the “Moshiach” (Messiah).

The custom is to eat dairy foods on Shavuot because once the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) was given at Sinai, all methods of killing the animal, other than by “shechitah”, ritually-approved slaughter, were prohibited. Since animals could not be ritually slaughtered on Shabbat (Sabbath), and the Torah was given on Shabbat, on that day the Jews at Sinai had to eat dairy.

Ashkenazic (central and eastern European Jewry) fare includes a variety of dairy dishes including blintzes (fried, filled crepes), noodle or rice kugels (puddings), knishes (filled pastries), kreplach (filled pasta), priogen (filled pastry turnovers), vegetable salads with sour cream, kaesekuchen (cheesecake), strudel, schnecken (yeast pastries), rugelach (cream cheese cookies), kuchen (coffee cakes) and fluden (layered pastry).

Sephardim (Spanish, Portuguese, North African, Balkan, Greek and Turkish Jewry) serve such dishes as borekas (pastry turnovers), ojaldres (phyllo turnovers), calsones (filled pasta), esfongus (spinach-cheese nests), mengedarrah (lentils with rice) topped with yogurt, yogurt salads, sutlach (rice flour pudding), ruz ib assal (honey and milk rice pudding) and biscochos Har Sinai (mounded cookies representing Mt. Sinai).

A fairly newer custom begun in the U.S. by Reform Jewry, and adopted by Conservative Judaism as well, is to hold religious school graduation exercises on Shavuot. More traditional Orthodox communities begin a child’s formal Jewish education on Shavuot.

Chag Sameach (KHAG sah-MEHY-ahkh = A Joyous Holiday)!

For a Cheese Blintz & Montana Blintz recipe, click more

Cheese Blintz Recipe

The following recipe for Cheese Blintzes is derived from a recipe by Natalie Fisher, a one-time resident of Shelby, Montana, and is from “The MAJCO COOKBOOK, VOLUME II”, published by the Montana Association of Jewish Communities (1999):

Here’s what you will need:

Crepe:
1 cup milk
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
butter or vegetable oil for frying

Filling:
1 lb. cottage cheese
1/4 lb. farmers cheese (dry cottage cheese)
1/2 lb. cream cheese
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg

Topping:
sour cream
applesauce
fruit toppings

You will also need:
bowl
whisk or fork
large utility spoon
crepe, or small frying, pan
large plate
wax paper
2nd bowl (or, a cleaned first bowl)
plate
tablespoon
frying pan
spatula

Here’s what you need to do:

1. In a bowl, beat eggs. Add milk. Beat in flour until smooth.

2. Pour in a utility spoon of mixture into a greased crepe or small round pan.

3. Cook on one side until lightly browned.

4. Flip onto a plate lined with wax paper. Stack crepes with wax paper in between.

5. In a bowl, mix filling ingredients together.

6. TO SHAPE BLINTZES: Place about 1 heaping tablespoons filling on the cooked side of the crepe. Fold in sides and roll up like an egg roll or burrito.

7. TO COOK BLINTZES: Lightly brown (on both sides) using butter in a frying pan.

8. Serve with sour cream, applesauce or fruit topping.

For a Montana blintz, replace the sweetened cheese filling with huckleberry preserves.

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