It Isn’t Yom Kippur Break Fast At My House Without This Egg Casserole

Our family’s approach to Yom Kippur break fast is a Southern one. Many North Americans associate this feast with an array of sweet kugels, bagels with all of the accoutrements, rugelach in every flavor, blintzes and maybe a special cake or two. Chances are you have never seen a spread filled with egg casserole, cream cheese grits and homemade biscuits. 

Before the early 1900s, my family had not either. How did this menu come to be for a half-Sephardi, half-Ashkenazi Jewish family? It’s a funny story.

I recently recovered my great-grandpa’s autobiography that had been stowed away in storage. He detailed the lengths that it would take to acquire kosher food in Georgia in the early 20th century. Quick synopsis: It required special connections and effort to secure the holiday food necessities from the certified grocer. The “good stuff” was reserved for the residents of Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah, while little was set aside for small town Jewish families. My family was one of the latter so we had no choice but to incorporate ingredients that were more accessible into our meal planning. Eggs, grits and flour were much easier to secure than specialty meats. Thus, Southern-style cuisine became intertwined with our family meals and traditions.

All of this to say that I’ve grown accustomed to this style of break fast. I prefer it to the regretful annual reminder that my stomach is not meant to digest mounds of mayonnaise-laden proteins or seconds of sugar immediately after 24 hours without. Simple, flavorful and easily digestible foods are the strength and strategy in our Southern-inspired menu.  

The hearty pièce de résistance of our table is my mom’s egg casserole. It’s silky, cheesy and smells amazing coming out of the oven. Egg casserole can be made in advance; refrigerate overnight and forget it until an hour before sunset.

When going in for the bake, know that the egg mixture will be settled so the ratio of bread to egg mixture will look skewed. It’s not. The “casserole” bakes like a souffle, so the egg mixture will rise and create a pillowy texture to complement the crusty bits of challah that are exposed at the top.

Feel free to modify this recipe to use any kind of bread (i.e. wholewheat, gluten-free, sourdough, etc.), milk instead of half-and-half or a different sharp cheese (Gruyere or Manchego would be nice). That’s the essence of my mom’s style of Southern Jewish cooking — make it tasty, but creatively configure the ingredients to work for the specific group you’re hosting. Serve her egg casserole alongside cream cheese grits, thick-cut biscuits plus a little bit of fruit and not only will you be covered for the holiday, you’ll get a taste of the lesser known tradition that we hold so dear.

Notes: 

• The casserole needs to chill in the fridge for a couple of hours, or overnight, before baking.
•  Egg casserole can be made in advance; refrigerate overnight and forget it until an hour before sunset.

This article was produced as part of The Nosher’s Jewish Food Fellows Program, which aims to diversify the voices telling Jewish food stories in media spaces. 

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