Plums for Rosh Hashanah

I was looking up at my plum tree the other day and I realized that quite suddenly the plums are good to go!

“Great” I thought to myself  “now I’ll be able to make that tasty side dish for Rosh Hashannah”

I have been feeling  the Yamim Noraim (days of awe)  in the air. It’s  just a surreptitious feeling really, maybe it started the other day as my seven year old marched around the house blowing the shofar, or perhaps its the very faint change in the weather signaling the advent of Autumn, and then when I saw the plums I felt a tug.

Summer is coming to an end and its time to stop playing.

Rosh Hashannah (Jewish New Year)  means introspection, taking stock, and making resolutions and is generally a pretty serious time of year in Jewish communities all over the world. In days of old there was a special awaken er (a veker) who would walk from house to house in the early morning knocking on doors intoning “Selichot, Selichot.”

Selichot are the special prayers, beseeching forgiveness, that are said  early every morning the week before Rosh Hashannah. For Sephardic Jews, Selichot are said the entire month preceding Rosh Hashannah. My husband remembers that growing up in Jerusalem, Selichot would signal the change of season, since that would be the time the sweaters would come out of storage.

As a youngster I loved lying in bed at night listening to my mother cooking up a storm, way into the wee hours in preparation for the holidays. I always make the same menu that she did, and still does. Its the one Holiday that if you walk into any of my sisters homes you are guaranteed to find the same dishes, raisin challah, squash bread, yams and apricots, cinnamon rolls and of course lechach (honey cake).  We don’t make any spicy or sour dishes!

I remember wanting to make pickled salmon one year and my mother telling me in a horrified  voice

“Rochie, we don’t make anything with vinegar in it, you don’t want a sour year do you?”

“Uh no, I’ll just bake the salmon, no worries”

Many have the custom to not use nuts on Rosh Hashannah because “egoz”  (nuts in Hebrew) is the same numerical value of “chet”  (sin). We do try to eat a lot of carrots (tzimis or kugel)  because carrots in Yiddish is “meren” which can also mean “more” (more of the good stuff)

So as you can tell the Rosh Hashannah menu in the Farkash household is full of the good stuff. Challah in honey, apple in honey, honey nut cheerios (for breakfast) and in sympathy for my husband Potato Borekes.

“Sweet is for dessert” he says (oh what he’s missing)

So what to do with all these beautiful plums that  ripen just in time for the New Year?

When I moved to Bellevue many years ago we were just thrilled to have something growing that we could eat. We felt very agricultural. I called Bobby Miriam in Los Angeles….

“Bobby, what do I do with all these plums?”

“Oh Mamale, you can make lekvar (plum jam) or plum pie or plums in sweet syrup….”

” Plums in sweet syrup hmm, what do I do?”

“Oh there’s just nothing to it….”

Nothing To it Plums in Sweet Syrup

• 2 lbs of Italian plums pitted and sliced horizontally
• 2 1/2 cups of water
• 2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon
• 1 1/3 cups sugar

Place sliced plums in a large glass pyrex dish (plums should not overlap)

Boil up water with lemon and sugar. When boiled pour over plums and let steep for 8 minutes. Drain syrup from plums back into pot. Boil up syrup once again and pour over plums and let steep for another 8 minutes. Repeat process a third time and let plums remain in syrup. When cooled store in plastic container and refrigerate.

Will last up to a week refrigerated.

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