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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kenneth R. Smith, APR
March 22, 2002
Marketing Communications Account Executive
Telephone: (410) 581-4075
E-mail: ksmith@mpt.org
MPT. This is bigger than television.
The stories behind the recipes
Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan returns to PBS
with 13 new episodes highlighting American cultural traditions with Jewish
roots
OWINGS MILLS, MD: What do an Italian chef, a Russian émigrée
and a nationally known New York newspaper columnist have in common? They
are among the many delightful home cooks and world-class chefs who join
award-winning author Joan Nathan in a new season of PBS' Jewish Cooking
in America with Joan Nathan starting Sunday, April 7 at 4:00 p.m.
Nathan, author of six books on food and culture and well-known lecturer,
goes back on the road in search of stories and recipes in 13 new half-hour
episodes. Her travels take her to New England, the Mid-Atlantic, California,
the Pacific Northwest, New York and the South.
Highlights include Wolfgang Puck making his famous "Jewish Pizza";
Daniel Boulud with the "ultimate potato pancake"; André
Soltner's "Choucroute a la Juive"; and Roberto Donna's version
of kreplach.
Joining Nathan in the kitchen are some of America's top food writers.
The New York Times' Mark Bittman prepares his grandmother's chicken
fricassee. Joyce Goldstein prepares delicious roasted peppers stuffed
with eggplant. Madeleine Kamman does an updated salmon escabeche. Paula
Wolfert cooks a North African dish of artichoke hearts with oranges and
coriander, while National Public Radio's Daniel Zwerdling and his wife
Barbara make a lower calorie whitefish salad.
A key theme running throughout the series is the influence of Jewish cooking
on American cuisine. Nathan and her guests explore the similarities between
tortellini and kreplach; how to make gefilte fish using salmon instead
of whitefish ("Northwest gefilte fish"); and the origins of
that old favorite, chicken soup.
Meeting so many interesting people in different parts of the country
and preserving their stories and traditions is perhaps Nathan's greatest
joy in her work. Says Nathan, "Jewish culture is alive and thriving
in places where people wouldn't think to look for it, and it's an important
part of American culture. What I've really enjoyed is seeing how much
we're all the same. So many people not only learn about Jewish food but
how much of their own culture is in it."
The series is more than a cooking show - it's the people and places behind
the recipes. Viewers meet home cooks such as the delightful June Salander,
a vibrant 93-year-old who adds family history, wit and wisdom to the ingredient
list for her fresh-baked Challah bread. Roberto Donna describes the similarities
in Jewish and Italian cooking. Ella Gilkis tells of growing up in Soviet
Russia as she makes a Russian Winter Vegetable Salad. Nathan's 88-year-old
mother Pearl Nathan appears in the series with her recipe for hot dogs
with sweet and sour cabbage.
In perhaps the most moving appearances, Eva Young tells an amazing tale
of survival in Nazi Occupied Europe while her husband, himself a Holocaust
survivor she met after the war, sings in the background. In another moving
moment, Rose Zawid tells a harrowing tale of how the ghost of her mother
saved her life during the second World War.
Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan is more than one of
PBS' most popular programs. It's a celebration of food and culture 5,000
years in the making.
Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan is a co-production of
Joan Nathan, frappé, inc., and Maryland Public Television. National
underwriting is provided by Ann L. Bronfman Foundation, Einstein Bros.
Bagels, B. Manischewitz Company, Old Fashioned Kitchen, and various private
foundations and individuals.
Maryland Public Television (MPT) is among the largest producers of national
and international programs for public television. Major series include
Wall $treet Week, MotorWeek, Mollie Katzen's Cooking Show and
Stokes Birds at Home For more information, visit MPT's Web site at
www.mpt.org.
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