by David Werdiger

Created on: March 09, 2009   Last Updated: May 12, 2009

Like many traditional Shabbat foods, the origin of cholent is a result of Halacha - Jewish law. The problem is simple: one may not cook food on Shabbat, so how can one have a hot dish for lunch on Saturday? Friday night isn't such a problem - food that is made hot just before the start of Shabbat will remain so for some time, but not for fifteen or more hours until lunch the next day (as an aside, another example of necessity being the mother of invention is gefilte fish, which was created because we are forbidden to remove bones from fish on Shabbat).

Why do we need a hot meal at all for Shabbat lunch? The Talmud mentions that one must eat "chamin" on Shabbat. This word is a variation on "cham", meaning "hot", so one interpretation of the passage is that it means we must eat a hot dish. Indeed, the term "chamin" is still used by many Sephardic Jews to refer to what is more broadly referred to as Cholent.

So Cholent is simply a slow-cooked stew that is prepared on Friday, partially cooked by the start of Shabbat, and then left to cook overnight without intervention. The particular traditions as to what ingredients should be used in Cholent come down to domestic science (what types of foods can actually cook for that long and taste good), and local cultural influences.

The basic Ashkenazic Cholent starts with potatoes and legumes - beans and/or barley - simply because these foods cook well over a long time and don't fall apart. For the carnivores among us, meat is essential - usually a cut that has a plenty of fat such as top-rib or just a marrow bone. The meat gets very soft when cooked for a long time, and the fat ensures the Cholent does not dry out. For vegetarians, it's just a vegetable stew. For Pesach, the beans and barley are dropped by some to form a variation known as a "yabtzek" - to my knowledge, this is Polish in origin. Kishke is also a very popular ingredient.

Jews everywhere have been influenced by local cuisine, and by the availability of the right ingredients, so you will find Sephardic Cholents may be rice-based rather than using potatoes. Chicken is sometimes used instead of meat, although the bones tend to fall apart when cooked for a long time.

The more inventive cooks will continue to experiment and create new variations on the recipe that was handed down by their parents, so we will see further evolution of this genre in generations to come.

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