So what is Jewish food in Poland? I like to distinguish between Halakhah -  Jewish ritual law, Minhag - Jewish custom, and cuisine, and in each case there is something quite specific to Jewish food in Poland. Let's start with Halakhah, with Jewish law. And, of course, we're talking about Kashrut. And you would think that when we talk about kosher, this is a straightforward matter. We read the book of Leviticus. We talk to a Shehita - to a ritual slaughterer - and it's clear, you don't mix milk and meat, you can't eat pork. But actually it's not so clear. So, for example, in certain parts of Poland, mushrooms were considered treif. They were considered not kosher, tomatoes were considered treif, not kosher, and even fish, which was considered kosher, there was a question as to whether it's meat, and whether you can eat it with meat, or whether you can eat it with dairy. So now why would tomatoes not be kosher? Well, one explanation was that they were bloody, another that when you cut them in half there was a cross inside, or in the case of mushrooms that they were anomalous. They didn't fit into any category. So now let's turn to Minhag – to custom. There are many customary practices that are quite specific to Polish Jews and quite specific to particular Jewish communities, whether they're associated with the Sabbath, how you break a Challah,  how many Challahs you have, whether they're specific to Passover or to various Jewish holidays. And then there's cuisine. What's so interesting about cuisine are the connections, the kind of symbiosis between Jews and their neighbors, when it comes to food. They share the same climate. They share the same raw ingredients, the same local products, the same seasonality, and they share many of the same dishes.

But they may prepare them slightly differently. They may eat them on different occasions, and they may think about them differently. So that, for example, if we were to take potato latkes, which we know all through Europe there are various forms of essentially potato pancakes. In Poland, it might be a very large potato pancake the size of a plate covered with goulash. That's unimaginable in Jewish tradition. And in Poland, you might eat those potato pancakes all year round. But of course, in Jewish tradition, they would be associated specifically with Hanukkah. I would say that what we think of as Polish Jewish cuisine is, in fact, regional, and we can find many of the same dishes in the Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania. But there are regional differences in how they're prepared. And perhaps the most famous example would be gefilte fish, which can be prepared either sweet, or salt and peppery. And there is even a kind of line that demarcates where the fish is prepared in one way or the other. And so the relationship between Jews and their neighbours is beautifully expressed in cuisine. And we can see it as well in soups and in stuffed cabbage, in kreplach, in knishes, in all kinds of dishes, but with certain key differences. Where the non-Jews would use lard, Jews would use goose fat. Where non Jews would use sour cream in their borscht, Jews would prepare a non-meat borscht if one was to use dairy with it. And so there are adaptations to, if you will, the kosher kitchen. And of course, traditionally, it was a given that the Jewish kitchen would be kosher.