Knish

Knish
Knishes with mashed potato and fried onions
Alternative names Knysh
Type Snack, side dish, finger food
Region or state Central and Eastern Europe
Main ingredients Mashed potatoes, dough, ground meat, sauerkraut, onions, kasha, cheese

A knish /kəˈnɪʃ/ is a Jewish Central and Eastern European[1] snack food consisting of a filling covered with dough that is either baked, grilled, or deep fried.

Knishes can be purchased from street vendors in urban areas with a large Jewish population, sometimes at a hot dog stand or from a butcher shop. It was made popular in North America by Central and Eastern European Jewish immigrants from the Pale of Settlement (mainly from present-day Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine).[2]

In most Central and Eastern European traditional versions, the filling is made entirely of mashed potato, ground meat, sauerkraut, onions, kasha (buckwheat groats), or cheese. Other varieties of fillings include sweet potatoes, black beans, fruit, broccoli, tofu, or spinach.

Knishes may be round, rectangular, or square. They may be entirely covered in dough or some of the filling may peek out of the top. Sizes range from those that can be eaten in a single bite hors d'oeuvre to sandwich-sized.

History

Eastern European Jewish immigrants who arrived sometime around 1900 brought knishes to North America.[3] Knish (קניש) is a Yiddish word that was derived from the Ukrainian knysh (книш) and Polish knysz.[4][5] The first knish bakery in America was founded in New York in 1910."[6] Generally recognized as a food made popular in New York by Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s, the United States underwent a knish renaissance in the 2000s driven by knish specialty establishments such as the Knish Shop in Baltimore, Maryland,[7] Buffalo and Bergen[8] in Washington, DC, or My Mother's Knish,[9] in Westlake Village, California.

Similar dishes

Many culinary traditions feature similar baked, grilled, or fried dough-covered snacks (see list of dumplings), including the Cornish pasty, the Scottish Bridie, the Jamaican patty, the Spanish and Latin American empanada, the Middle Eastern fatayer, the Portuguese rissol, the Italian calzone, the Central and South Asian samosa, the Texan klobasnek, the Czech kolache, the Romanian placinta, the Polish pierogi, the Russian and Ukrainian pirog, pirozhki and vatrushka, the Tatar peremech, the Russian-German bierock, the German Maultasche and the Southeast Asian curry puff.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Wasserman, Tina. "Cooking: The Ultimate Jewish Finger Food". Reform Judaism Magazine. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-14.
  2. ↑ Silver, Laura (May 6, 2014). Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press. ISBN 978-1-61168-312-7.
  3. ↑ The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink - Google Boeken. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  4. ↑ "Judaism 101: Jewish Cooking". Jewfaq.org. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  5. ↑ "knish - definition of knish by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia". Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  6. ↑ (Kugel, Knishes, and Other Tasty Dishes by Nina Yellin, 2001)
  7. ↑ "The Knish Shop, Baltimore". Jewishinbaltimore.com. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  8. ↑ "Gina Chersevani's Union Market Soda Shop and Bar Will Be Called Buffalo and Bergen | Food & Restaurant News". Washingtonian. 2012-05-24. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  9. ↑ Alan RichmanPhotograph by Martin O'Neill. "A Mother's Knishes: Alan Richman". GQ. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  • The dictionary definition of knish at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of קניש at Wiktionary
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