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You Are What You Eat: Jews, Food, and Film

Jonathan Gold, Jeffrey Shandler, and Leslie Brenner in conversation with Evan Kleiman
APRIL 22, 2007 4:30 PM
FREUD PLAYHOUSE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Remember the scene with the lobsters in Annie Hall? Or Mel Brooks waiting tables at the Last Supper in History of the World, Part I? Or the abuses of liver and pie in Portnoy's Complaint and American Pie? Perhaps your tastes run to television. Well, how about the marble rye episode on Seinfeld or Charlotte's Shabbat dinner on Sex in the City? For nearly a century, writers and directors have been using food as a shorthand for talking about Jewish identity, from Molly Picon making off with the Yom Kippur feast in East and West (1923) to the Cohen's Passover seder on The OC. Three of Los Angeles top food critics talk about why these meals are different from all other meals.

JONATHAN GOLD, former restaurant critic for Los Angeles magazine, California magazine, and The Los Angeles Times, began writing the Counter Intelligence column for the L.A. Weekly in 1986. He is currently the New York restaurant critic for Gourmet.

LESLIE BRENNER is Food Editor at The Los Angeles Times. She's also the author of a critically acclaimed novel, Greetings From the Golden State and five books about food and wine, including The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York Restaurant and American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a Cuisine.

JEFFREY SHANDLER is Associate Professor in the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture and While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust. He is the co-author/co-editor (with J. Hoberman) of Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting.

EVAN KLEIMAN is the owner and executive chef of LA restaurant Angeli Caffe Caffe and best-selling author of numerous cookbooks, including Cucina Fresca and Pasta Fresca. A scholar of Italian cooking and culture, Kleiman is host of Good Food, KCRW's weekly food program.

Leslie Brenner photo © Thierry Peremarti