Enough with the Gefilte Fish; I’ll Have Sushi

Yes, Sushi, which you won’t find in most 20th-century Jewish cookbooks, let alone the Torah, has become a runaway hit in the city’s Hasidic and other Orthodox-Jewish neighborhoods, reports the New York Times.

From the New York Times:

Orthodox Jews are eating dragon rolls, rainbow rolls, tsunami rolls and California rolls (using imitation crab) in sushi bars like Sushi Meshuga in Brooklyn or in more eclectic kosher restaurants and supermarkets. Weddings and bar mitzvahs aren’t complete without a sushi station, and a sushi platter has become the gift of choice for Hanukkah and Purim, or to congratulate parents who are marrying off a child.

Pincus Yoel Freund, a managing partner of the firm that runs a leading sushi distributor, Sushi Maven, estimates that there are over 50 sushi bars in restaurants and grocery stores just in Borough Park, the city’s largest Hasidic neighborhood, with at least another 50 in other parts of Brooklyn like Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Midwood. He says most have cropped up in the past five to 10 years.

Rabbi Moshe Elefant, chief operating officer of the kosher division of the Orthodox Union, the world’s largest kosher certifier, said 80 to 90 percent of the city’s 100 kosher restaurants now serve sushi.

“It used to be that what defined a Jewish community was a synagogue and a kosher butcher,” he said. “Then it was a kosher pizza shop. Now it’s a kosher sushi shop.”

Click here to continue reading at the New York Times.

7 Comments

  • Milhouse

    This is news?! Who in the world didn’t know this already?

    For some reason the NYT seem to have some fixed ideas about kosher products that can’t be washed away no matter how many times they learn the opposite. Every year around Pesach time, for at least the past 30 years, we are breathlessly informed that kosher wine is no longer just those horrible syrups that everyone “knows” they are. And I’m sure the NYT will continue to report this “news” again next Pesach and the following one, right until it goes out of business (bimheiro veyomeinu).

    The kosher sushi phenomenon is similarly an item frequently reported, and apparently just as frequently forgotten by those whose minds can’t handle the concept that kosher food is normal food, and kosher keepers are normal people. I expect them to keep reporting on it from time to time, until either they go out of business, or the kosher crowd finally gets bored with sushi and moves on to something else.

    Then again, imagine the headlines 30 years from now: “Enough with the sushi, I’ll have ceviche” (or whatever form of fish will then be popular).

  • CH.info links to NYT??

    First the NYT rips your Shomrim, and then you link to them as if they’re a reputable paper instead of the disgusting rag that they are?

  • DeClasse' Intellectual

    Not only is gefilte fish nutrionally deficit but it caters to those born without taste buds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • DeClasse' Intellectual

    Attention trabbi elephat: Any fine quality resturant(not including Oriental ones) would serve either gefilte fish or shusi becausse itg would jepordize their reputation as great and elegant places to eat!!!

  • Ms3w

    but: always remember gefilte fish, and make sure that your friends and family are familiar with it.
    know from where you come

  • sw2

    I would serve both, so that our children grow up knowing that gefilte was a major part of our lives