Jews developed their love for all things steamed, stir-fried, and soy-sauced after leaving the Old Country.
But as historians and culinary experts told Mental Floss, other ingredients play a part in this delicious story. Suddenly, egg rolls with pork were fair game, transfigured into permissible delicacies through hunger and willful ignorance.Īs Gentiles feast on turkey and roast beef during the Yuletide season, why do many Jews opt for chop suey? For starters, it's convenient: Chinese restaurants are open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The future restaurateur's grandmother kept a kosher kitchen, but outside the home all dietary laws flew out the window with the single spin of a Lazy Susan. And just like his customers, Schoenfeld and his family sometimes craved Chinese food on Christmas, eschewing homemade fare for heaping plates of chow mein and egg foo yung. While his expertise lies in Far Eastern cuisine, Schoenfeld grew up in Brooklyn and learned to cook from his Eastern European grandmother. Schoenfeld is the Jewish owner-operator of RedFarm, an Asian-fusion dim sum restaurant with two locations in New York (plus one in London), and Decoy, a West Village shrine to traditional Peking duck. “We serve all day long, we stay open all day long.” “I think on that day we do more business than many restaurants do in three months,” Schoenfeld told Mental Floss in 2017. For Jewish New Yorkers, scoring a seat at one of veteran restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld’s Chinese eateries on Christmas Day could be compared to a holiday miracle.