The Dybbuk is a food and social practice art intervention to be undertaken by Felix Kalmenson and David Bernstein in collaboration with the Lithuanian Pavilion. It will take as it's jumping off point 'The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook' which is a fascinating document which can be read about in the description below. The book is relevant to the project in numerous intersections related to food cultures arriving out of scarcity, 'making-do' with what is available in a time of crisis. Likewise it centers plant-based food futures connecting them to little known microhistories of women-centered Litvak initiatives which were disappeared by the war and exterminations.
https://www.yivo.org/The-Vilna-Vegetarian-Cookbook
" In 1938, Fania Lewando, the proprietor of a popular vegetarian restaurant in Vilna, published a Yiddish vegetarian cookbook unlike any that had come before. Its 400 recipes ranged from traditional Jewish dishes (kugel, blintzes, fruit compote, borscht) to vegetarian versions of Jewish holiday staples (tsholent, kishke, schnitzel) to appetizers, soups, main courses, and desserts that introduced vegetables and fruits that had not traditionally been part of the repertoire of the Jewish homemaker (Chickpea Cutlets, Jerusalem Artichoke Soup; Leek Frittata; Apple Charlotte with Whole Wheat Breadcrumbs). Also included were impassioned essays by Lewando and by a physician about the benefits of vegetarianism. Accompanying the recipes were lush full-color drawings of vegetables and fruit that had originally appeared on bilingual (Yiddish and English) seed packets. Lewando's cookbook was sold throughout Europe.
Lewando and her husband died during World War II, and it was assumed that all but a few family-owned and archival copies of her cookbook vanished along with most of European Jewry. But in 1995 a couple attending an antiquarian book fair in England came upon a copy of Lewando's cookbook. Recognizing its historical value, they purchased it and donated it to YIVO. Enchanted by the book's contents and by its backstory, YIVO commissioned a translation of the book that will make Lewando's charming, delicious, and practical recipes available to an audience beyond the wildest dreams of the visionary woman who created them."
Our project centres around the idea of a pop up restaurant which would serve up recipes from this cookbook alongside yiddish aphorisms in a performative food ritual which centers generosity and exchange. This restaurant or snack bar will exist alongside Robertas' plans and as something that emerges spontaneously in the anarchist social club or on the street. We will repurpose a food cart incorporating elements of Litvak and Ashkenazi practices and rituals, such as the practice of leaving a portion of the construction unfinished in commemoration of the ruins of the Second Temple. We will also work with an anarchist yiddish kitchen based in Glasgow and the zines they make: https://www.instagram.com/dirozevepave/ so as to center living radical yiddish cultures alongside the historical ones.
The project will take place in September 2022
https://www.yivo.org/The-Vilna-Vegetarian-Cookbook
" In 1938, Fania Lewando, the proprietor of a popular vegetarian restaurant in Vilna, published a Yiddish vegetarian cookbook unlike any that had come before. Its 400 recipes ranged from traditional Jewish dishes (kugel, blintzes, fruit compote, borscht) to vegetarian versions of Jewish holiday staples (tsholent, kishke, schnitzel) to appetizers, soups, main courses, and desserts that introduced vegetables and fruits that had not traditionally been part of the repertoire of the Jewish homemaker (Chickpea Cutlets, Jerusalem Artichoke Soup; Leek Frittata; Apple Charlotte with Whole Wheat Breadcrumbs). Also included were impassioned essays by Lewando and by a physician about the benefits of vegetarianism. Accompanying the recipes were lush full-color drawings of vegetables and fruit that had originally appeared on bilingual (Yiddish and English) seed packets. Lewando's cookbook was sold throughout Europe.
Lewando and her husband died during World War II, and it was assumed that all but a few family-owned and archival copies of her cookbook vanished along with most of European Jewry. But in 1995 a couple attending an antiquarian book fair in England came upon a copy of Lewando's cookbook. Recognizing its historical value, they purchased it and donated it to YIVO. Enchanted by the book's contents and by its backstory, YIVO commissioned a translation of the book that will make Lewando's charming, delicious, and practical recipes available to an audience beyond the wildest dreams of the visionary woman who created them."
Our project centres around the idea of a pop up restaurant which would serve up recipes from this cookbook alongside yiddish aphorisms in a performative food ritual which centers generosity and exchange. This restaurant or snack bar will exist alongside Robertas' plans and as something that emerges spontaneously in the anarchist social club or on the street. We will repurpose a food cart incorporating elements of Litvak and Ashkenazi practices and rituals, such as the practice of leaving a portion of the construction unfinished in commemoration of the ruins of the Second Temple. We will also work with an anarchist yiddish kitchen based in Glasgow and the zines they make: https://www.instagram.com/dirozevepave/ so as to center living radical yiddish cultures alongside the historical ones.
The project will take place in September 2022
The Dybbuk
