Lord of the Foods: The Quest for 16

This past Friday night, my friend Jordan and I decided to embark on the ultimate Shabbat dinner challenge. We wanted to have all 16 foods from the Jewish Food Tournament in one meal.

The first challenge we had was finding funds for such an endeavor. Luckily for us, Jordan is a Birthright alumnus, meaning he qualifies for NEXT Shabbat, something which I blogged about a couple months ago. To thank them, I have renamed the tournament the Taglit-Birthright Israel NEXT Shabbat MyJewishLearning.com Kosher Food Invitational (TBINSMJLKFI).

The preparation of the food ran rather smoothly, minus the fact that I angered the old Jewish lady who owns the butcher near me and shouldn’t return there for a month or so.

But sadly, I could not fulfill the dream. When it came to the desserts (honey cake, hamentashen, sufganiyot), I came up short. For some reason, honey cake was tough to find and the other two were impossible to find without dairy products.

But lets not think about the negatives. Have you ever had apples & honey, matzah, horeset, cholent, gefilte fish, lox & bagels all at one meal? Let alone a Friday night?

I think not.

The highlight for me was the cholent. The lowpoint was probably the matzah. It is sitting in my kitchen untouched since I took a piece.

Did we eat all 16 foods? No. Did we try? Yes. Was it one of the craziest meals I ever had? Not even a question.