A poignant―and delicious―compendium of South Car­oli­na Jew­ish life revealed through food and story

Where peo­ple go, so goes their food. In Kugels & Col­lards: Sto­ries of Food, Fam­i­ly, and Tra­di­tion in Jew­ish South Car­oli­na, Rachel Gordin Bar­nett and Lyssa Klig­man Har­vey cel­e­brate the unique and diverse food his­to­ry of Jew­ish South Car­oli­na. They gath­er sto­ries and recipes from diverse Jew­ish sources―Sephardic and Ashke­nazi fam­i­lies who have been in the state for hun­dreds of years, descen­dants of Holo­caust sur­vivors, and more recent immi­grants from Rus­sia and Israel―and explore how cher­ished dish­es were influ­enced by avail­able ingre­di­ents and com­ple­ment­ed by African Amer­i­can and region­al culi­nary tra­di­tions. These sto­ries are a vital part of the South’s ​“Jew­ish geog­ra­phy” and food­ways, stretch­ing across state lines to shape south­ern cul­ture. On the south­ern Jew­ish table, many cul­tures are savored. Exten­sive­ly illus­trat­ed with orig­i­nal and archival pho­tographs, Kugels & Col­lards col­lects includes more than eighty recipes from sev­en­ty con­trib­u­tors. Bar­nett and Har­vey draw on fam­i­ly cook­books and troves of per­son­al recipes and high­light Jew­ish sta­ples like kre­plach dumplings and stuffed cab­bage as well as adap­ta­tions of south­ern favorites such as peach cob­bler, plus mod­ern fusions like grits and lox casse­role, and of course kugels and col­lards. Kugels & Col­lards invites read­ers into fam­i­ly homes, busi­ness­es, and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters to share meals and memories.