When Lyssa Kligman Harvey hits the street, she takes her grandma Ida’s kugel along with her.
For the unfamiliar, Harvey describes the dish as “Japanese European consolation meals,” a noodle pudding that could be a staple of the delicacies Jewish households introduced with them after they immigrated to America.
“The kugel originates from Lithuania and was initially a potato pudding,” Harvey says. “Ultimately it morphed right into a candy pudding that’s served with brisket or different meats. I make mine with butter, however for a kosher or dairy kugel you can also make it with out butter.
“However all the things is best with butter.”
Harvey BSEd ’76 tells wonderful tales. They embody a touch of historical past, a pinch of private expertise, and a powerful base rooted within the participating culinary historical past of Jewish households within the South. Over the past 12 months, Harvey’s had a number of alternatives to share these tales.
And a number of kugel.
In August 2023, Harvey and her co-writer Rachel Gordin Barnett launched their first ebook, Kugels & Collards: Tales of Meals, Household, and Custom in Jewish South Carolina. A number of excursions adopted, taking the pair throughout the Southeast and up the Atlantic coast. They spoke to audiences starting from 500 South Carolina state legislators—who ate brisket over collards—to smaller teams in rural Carolina libraries.
Lyssa Kligman Harvey’s first ebook was so successful that she and her co-writer are already engaged on a second.
“I by no means noticed myself as a author,” Harvey says. “A collaborator? Sure. A gatherer of tales? Sure. I like listening to folks’s tales.”
For Harvey, changing into an writer, if something, is a 3rd profession.
She earned her undergraduate diploma in artwork schooling at UGA after which a grasp’s in artwork remedy and a complicated diploma in counseling. For the final 50 years, she devoted her profession to serving to kids and households as a baby and adolescent counselor; she lately retired from her non-public observe.
Whereas at UGA, Harvey took artwork lessons on the Lamar Dodd Faculty of Artwork and commenced portray once more after her three kids left for school. Her work in water mediums on paper and canvas spotlight Southern waterscapes. Her award-winning artwork is represented by The Low Nation Artists Gallery in Charleston.
In 2017, the nonprofit Historic Columbia invited Harvey and Barnett, a longtime buddy, to serve on a committee tasked with recording a residing historical past of town’s Jewish group.
“We’re each foodies, and we love historical past,” Harvey says. “We had a hunch that telling meals tales is likely to be a great way to collect that historical past.”
Their hunch was right. They created a weblog known as Kugels & Collards, and by 2019, they collected greater than 50 tales and recipes. The College of South Carolina Press approached them for a ebook proposal.
“Meals is visceral. When folks discuss meals, it brings up recollections that may be emotional,” Harvey says. “You bear in mind your mom’s vacation dishes and linen or your grandmother’s meals and particular recipes. You bear in mind who’s on the desk and who’s now not there.”
Over the following 4 years, they continued to collect tales, in particular person and over Zoom. They expanded their scope incorporating tales to honor African American women and men who enhanced the tradition of the Jewish Southern desk. The ebook has 60 tales advised by people in their very own voices and 80 recipes which might be straightforward to observe and scrumptious to style.
When folks discuss meals, it brings up recollections that may be emotional. You bear in mind your mom’s vacation dishes and linen or your grandmother’s meals and particular recipes. You bear in mind who’s on the desk and who’s now not there.” — Lyssa Kligman Harvey, co-author of Kugels & Collards: Tales of Meals, Household, and Custom in Jewish South Carolina
The ebook’s success has led to a second one, simply begun, Southern Simchas Meals Traditions for Jewish Celebrations, which is able to discover Southern meals traditions in Jewish holidays and different celebrations.
When Harvey indicators copies of Kugels & Collards, she provides “Savor Your Story.”
“Once we began this mission, I didn’t understand how necessary remembering meals and recipes should not solely to us however for the world. Meals brings us collectively. Sitting round a shared desk is significant and memorable,” Harvey says. “So, on the subsequent vacation ask a member of the family for that particular recipe and the story behind the recipe. Write it down. And savor the reminiscence.”
