Moldova -- Bob Cohen's Ode to the Knish (and other food)

The old Settlement Cookbook had on its cover the phrase "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" (or so I remember). But, I think the way to ancestral memory, heimishness, home-thoughts, whatever you may call them is also through the stomach. Or at least the taste-buds. Or at least in descriptions of tastes and textures of what we eat. That's why some things are called comfort foods. And why Jewishness to some resides in lox, bagels, kreplach, kasha and knishes, rather than in anything religious.

On his latest blog post, Bob Cohen delves (almost literally) into contemporary culinary heaven in today's Moldova - with pictures. Wending through the Ashkenazi heartland, to the heart, through the stomach (by way, perhaps, of clogged arteries). Hidden gardens of knish, he calls it.

Great reading, and I envy the eating!

PS Bob, as I've noted earlier, was in Moldova on The Other Europeans project... he includes some great video of Adam Stinga, Kalman Balogh and others jamming between meals.