Kalechofsky releases reflective Pesach cookbook

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

MARBLEHEAD - If we got away from meat, Roberta Kalechofsky believes we would have a far better world, one in fact free from the current, haunting spectre of war. Her newly-released “The Vegetarian Pesach Cookbook,” through historic analogy and topical observation, mixes Passover cuisine with the politics of both our modern times and the exodus from Egypt.

The book, which follows her “The Jewish Vegetarian Year,” contains enough meatless recipes to cover all of the seder courses as well as meals for the entire eight days of Passover.

“’Let us go back to the fleshpots of Egypt!’ was the hoarse shout of the Hebrews in the desert, in what may be history’s first recorded food riot,” said Kalechofsky, a former English literature instructor at Brooklyn College with a doctorate in English literature from New York University, who has written seven fictional works, a monograph on George Orwell, poetry, and two collections of essays. “They would have preferred to return to their slave status to satisfy their appetites.”

For the Jews of Egypt as well as the Jews of today, the excess usage of energy and oil incurred by the meat industry resulted in dependency on hostile foreign powers. If Americans simply altered their eating habits and did away with gas guzzlers, the U.S. could cut oil importation to achieve near self-sufficiency.

“The Hebrews actually considered murdering Moses over the issue of meat,” Kalechofsky noted. “We may find this astonishing, but today we thoughtlessly consider undermining our independence and our national strength for our appetites.”

She quoted the Union of Concerned Scientists’ identification of animal agriculture as the second-worst polluter of the environment, after the automobile. According to their research, animal agriculture uses 90 percent of the U.S.’s agricultural land, as well as hundreds of billions of gallons of water each day to irrigate animal-feed crops. Furthermore, contaminated fecal runoff from cows destroys topsoil and pollutes waters; this is often a contributing factor to famine in Third World countries.

“Diet is not only a question of personal morality; it is a question of national survival,” she said.

Her recipes include vegetable and nut loaf, vegetable bake, stuffed cabbage with mashed squash, sweet and sour cauliflower bake, vegetable and matzah casserole, mushroom and eggplant moussaka, leek and potato soup, butternut squash bisque, artichokes in lemon sauce, eggplant caviar, vegetable and fruit kugel, and sweet potato nut balls. Her pizza crust is made from mashed potatoes, matzah meal and potato flour, the knishes from mashed potatoes and potato starch. Sephardic rice-and-bean-based dishes are included as well. “For dessert, no one can beat my No Bake Chocolate Matzah Roll, garnished with strawberries, which can even be prepared the day before,” she boasted.

Over a nearly 50-year period of writing, Kalechofsky, who has lived with her husband Robert for 36 years, and has two children and four grandchildren, has been published in quarterlies, reviews and anthologies. She received Literary Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts.

“Changing our meat-centered diets could release sources of energy that are now being used to run huge factory farms, and such change would make land available that could be used to generate alternative sources of energy,” she said, noting that the feed cost of an eight-ounce steak can fill 45 to 50 bowls with cooked cereal grains.”

It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to obtain one calorie of protein from beef, and two calories of fossil fuel to get one calorie of protein from soybeans, and while the U.S. leads the world in soybean production, it feeds most of it to animals. “There are 20 billion head of livestock on earth, more than triple the number of people, occupying one-fourth of the earth’s land,” she said. “Meat diets take a disproportionate toll on our energy supply.”

Kalechofsky hopes her book will encourage Jews around the country to embrace a meatless Passover and help contribute to a cleaner environment. She wants people to know that vegetarian food can be gourmet, and fun.

“In memory of the Hebrew exodus from slavery, Passover should mark a time when we decide to embrace a meatless diet and take the first step toward

energy independence,” she said.

The Vegetarian Passover Cookbook can be purchased at www.micahbooks.com; Kalechofsky can be reached at 781-631-7601.