Of those Four Species, none gets more critical appraisal than the fragrant and sunny lemon-lime green citron, Citrus medica—or, in Hebrew, etrog—is a symbol of human fertility. “It’s so important that it be right,” said Yosef Shoshani, “that in Hasidic Brooklyn communities like Williamsburg and Borough Park, the sale begins right after Rosh Hashanah. Each customer can get permission from a vendor to take the etrog to a rebbe for inspection. They have plenty of time there for things like that. Prices there for the same etrogs we sell can be three or four times as much because many vendors pay a rabbi to stay on site for lengthy appraisals.”

Shoshani explained just why a citron can range in price from about $30 to as high as $100 (or even $1,000 for a specially sought out example). “It must be freshly picked, with a regular, pleasing oval shape, and its knobby skin must be as perfect as possible,” he said. “To be sure of that, one looks through a magnifying loupe, watching for bruises or schwartze pimpele, black pimples or specks. It’s something like glatt for kosher meat; there must be no bruises or lesions. Most of all, its pistil end, the protruding nipple, known as the pitom, must be intact. If that has fallen off while the fruit is still growing, the citron is acceptable. But if it falls off after picking, the citron is pasul, invalid.”

The rules for the Four Species are laid down in Leviticus 23:39-40. “And you shall take on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree, [pri etz hadar] date palm fronds [lulav], a bough of a leafy tree [hadass or myrtle] and willows [aravah] of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” The Talmudic sages determined the exact identities of the mandated Four Species. In trying to determine what specific fruit was alluded to, they considered the citron, the pomegranate, and the carob. The pomegranate, they decided, was glorious but its tree was not, and the carob tree was glorious but the fruit was not. With its luminous green-to-sunny yellow mottled rind, its elongated oval shape that makes it felicitous in the hand, and the exotically spicy, lemony perfume it exudes as it ripens, the citron was the clear winner.

There are exacting features for the other three species as well. The myrtle, promising long life and success, must have a red stem with sets of three leaves growing from each node. The lulav, a symbol of victory over enemies, sheaves from the heart of the date palm and must be attached to the central stem. Willows, symbolizing life-essential water, must stand upright, proving they are not wilting because of dehydration.

The number four itself is significant and denotes the most important parts of the body—eye, lips, heart, and spine—as well as the four directions: north, south, east, west. Maimonides said the four species remind us of the joy the Israelites felt in leaving the barren desert where none of these plants could grow for deliverance to the fertile Promised Land where they all flourished.

Those who can afford to hang a citron in the sukkah, the leaf and fruit-decked temporary dwelling erected during Sukkot. Because the citron’s inner flesh is dry and pulpy with only a rather pallid lemon-lime flavor, it’s no wonder few bother to prepare it for eating after Sukkot. The thick, resinous rind is another matter entirely, and ambitious home cooks simmer it with sugar to attain a rich, bitter-sweet marmalade. Commercially, the citron’s rind is valuable as it is candied and diced to add a limpid green-gold, jeweled note and an enticingly pungent zest to holiday breads and fruitcakes as well as to confections such as marzipan or nougat and festive cold rice puddings.

Jews are not the only ones to project symbolism onto the citron. “The fruit seems always to have had a curious connection with religion, medicine and magic,” writes Alan Davidson in The Oxford Companion to Food. Ancient Greeks called the citron the Persian apple and tucked it among woolens to discourage moths. And in India, Kuvera, the Hindu god of wealth, is always shown holding a citron in one hand. India, in fact, is believed to be the original home of the citron that then traveled to Persia and Babylon, where displaced Jews discovered and embraced the fruit, later taking seeds and cuttings with them back to Palestine.

The most expensive citrons, according to Shoshani, are the silver-green specimens grown in Italy, followed by those from Israel and Morocco. Cheaper ones from Corsica and California are available as well. They are typically sold in cardboard carrying boxes lined with soft plastic, but far more highly prized, and priced, are the elaborate citron-shaped cases in sterling silver or vermeil, gold-plated silver. These elegant citron boxes are lined with velvet or silk and would surely be the choice of the god Kuvera. Considering the exacting guidelines for choosing the four species, it is strange that they sell well on the internet. Apparently those far from etrog markets are willing to trust the gods of cyberspace.

Sugar, of course, would be as sweet. But honey has a special place in Jewish culinary history and is mentioned often in the Hebrew Bible. Righteousness is rewarded with deliverance to the land of milk and honey, two of nature’s own foods that provide ready sustenance to humans. It is a promise repeated in both Exodus 3:8 (“And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey”) and Deuteronomy 26:15 (“Look forth from Thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Thy people Israel, and the land which Thou hast given us, as Thou didst swear unto our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey”), though in Proverbs 25:16, it comes with a warning: “If you have found honey, eat in moderation lest you overeat and vomit.” Gluttons beware.

Although wild honey was treasured in biblical times, the cultivation of bees for honey did not evolve until centuries later. I was surprised to learn that fact many years ago at the enchanting 550-acre biblical landscape reserve Neot Kedumim, which lies close to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. In Deuteronomy 8:7-10, the abundance of the Holy Land is described by the presence of seven items that grow from the ground: wheat, barley, vines, fig and olive trees, pomegranates, and honey. But bees are animals, and so the Talmudic sages deduced that the honey referred to in that biblical passage was derived from dates. Sampling date honey at Neot Kedumim I found it to have a deep, rich, smoky flavor and a burnished sweetness although it was not nearly as subtly flowery as the bee honey that is now our staple.

In recent years, honey, a popular product in health food stores, has acquired “a health aura,” according to Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University: “Eat honey if you love the flavor, but it really is only comprised of sugars. The amounts of vitamins, trace minerals, and potassium in it are about equal to those in bottled water—so little as to be almost unmeasurable. Anything sugar will do to you, honey will also.”

As for apples’ part in the Rosh Hashanah ritual, they fit the definition of “new fruit,” supposed to be eaten at the New Year, and taken to mean either a fruit one has never tasted or which is new at the season, and celebrated with a recitation of the traditional shehechiyanu prayer marking first occasions. The apple also has biblical import; in the Song of Songs, Solomon sings, “Beneath the apple tree I aroused your love,” a gentle theme of affection for a new year, and a sentimental forerunner perhaps, of the World War II-era admonition not to “sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,” popularized by the Andrews Sisters. It is also often assumed that it was an apple that corrupted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, though, in fact, the Hebrew word used in Genesis is pree, or fruit. According to Lytton John Musselman, the author of Figs, Dates, Laurel & Myrrh, a book about biblical plants, it’s unlikely such a fruit was an apple. “It was just too hot and dry for apples to grow,” Musselman said. “They need some cold. Through the years, bible translations from the Hebrew have been done mostly by European Christians who resorted to names of plants they were familiar with. The apple was an enormous favorite.”

Even my family’s beloved honey cake has bibilical roots. Genesis 18:6 tells of Abraham’s hospitality toward three passing strangers. The patriarch tells Sarah, “Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal and honey, knead it, and make cakes.” Having done this apparently to the guests’ satisfaction, Sarah is rewarded by being made fertile in her old age to bear the 100-year-old Abraham the only, much-wanted child of their marriage, Isaac.

I can’t promise a similar miracle if you follow the recipe below, but it will give you much pleasure whether you have it with vanilla or cinnamon raisin ice cream, homemade McIntosh applesauce, or a cup of tea, a glass of red wine, or even a shot of schnaps.

• • •

Honey Cake – Lekach

• 9 ½ x 5 ½ x 3-inch loaf pan
• Peanut oil for pan
• Bakers’ parchment paper for lining pan

• 1 1/3 cups dark floral honey
• 1/3 cup black coffee, brewed double strength
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• 3 extra large eggs
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 cups sifted flour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 scant teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 scant teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 scant teaspoon powdered ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon powdered cloves
• 2 teaspoons grated orange rind
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Brush peanut oil thoroughly around bottom and sides of the pan. Cut parchment paper to fit the bottom and sides of the pan and brush oil on one side of each strip. Fit paper into pan, placing un-oiled sides against the pan.

Using a heavy-bottomed 2- to 3-quart saucepan, bring honey to a boil, watching carefully every second. Honey boils up and over quickly which is why a large pan and vigilance are required. Let honey cool and then stir in coffee and 2 tablespoons of peanut oil.

Beat eggs with sugar until pale and thick and so that the mixture forms ribbons when dripped back on itself. Stir honey mixture into the beaten eggs. Resift flour with other dry ingredients and gently fold into batter along with grated citrus rinds.

Pour batter into the prepared pan and tap bottom of the pan gently on the countertop to release air bubbles.

Bake for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until top is golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan. This tastes best if allowed to ripen 24 hours before being served. Once thoroughly cool, cover top of cake with foil or waxed paper and store in a cool place. When serving, peel off only as much paper as necessary for the amount of cake you are cutting.

In addition to the standard iodized variety, there is clay red salt from Hawaii; Celtic gray from the coast of Brittany; stone-ground, greenish salt from Bali in fine round crystals; bronze salt that has been smoked; and others types of salt in grains that are coarse and pyramid-shaped. There is, currently, controversy between those who swear by England’s slightly bitter, snowy Maldon flakes and the cohort (which include me) that prefers the silkier, more subtle fleur de sel from France’s Camargue region. In fact, salt connoisseurship is now such a popular gourmet game that at the justly celebrated Per Se restaurant in New York City, a salt tasting is a separate course on the Degustation menu.

For Jews, there is nothing new about the specialness of this condiment. It is declared sacred in many books of the Hebrew Bible. Here’s Levitius 2:13: “And every offerings of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering.” To this day, some people salt pieces of challah before they eat them on the Sabbath, and, at Passover, salt water, recalling the tears shed by slaves in Egypt, is the dip for parsley, lettuce, radishes, and hard-boiled eggs.

The attributes that make salt a symbol of steadfastness are not only its role as a preserver and purifier, and as an essential mineral, but its virtual indestructibility. Even if the crystals dissolve in liquid, they reform when that liquid evaporates. You might have witnessed this phenomenon after boiling pasta in well-salted water; afterward, chalky white spots remain on the stove top when the steam and water splashes have dried.

Then there is what’s known as kosher salt—but which should more accurately be called koshering salt. A mineral, salt is considered pareve as long as it has not been adulterated. Some brands of salt have a kosher symbol on the package only to indicate that nothing has defiled its contents. What makes this salt right for koshering meat and poultry is the size of the crystals. The object of koshering meat is to draw out blood, which Jews are forbidden to eat. If fine crystals were used, they would be absorbed into the meat quickly and draw in fluids. By contrast, coarse salt stays on the surface longer, leeching out the blood.

Much the same is true of pickling and dry curing. Salt preserves by drawing moisture out of living things, bacteria included, thereby killing them. That is why nothing lives in the Dead Sea. Also, coarse kosher salt is generally preferred by chefs because it is unadulterated. (Even iodized salt can add an unwanted chemical flavor to food.)

Given the spiritual importance salt has to Jews, and its usefulness in preserving many foods, such as salmon, herring, whitefish, corned beef, pastrami, pickled tomatoes, cabbage, and cucumbers, perhaps it’s no wonder we have developed a special taste for this flavor enhancer. That is fortunate up to a point. Salt—sodium chloride—has properties that enhance physical well-being, but if overeaten, it can cause physical harm.

Whether salt comes from the sea or a mine, it is essentially the same, though there are regional differences. “Nearly all solid salt deposits in the earth originally came from the sea,” explained Harold McGee, the Curious Cook columnist for The New York Times, a food scientist, and the author of On Food and Cooking. “Both mine and sea salts from different places will have different impurities that become insignificant when the salt is refined. Sea salt, derived from water that is allowed to evaporate in the sun, is not changed as to mineral composition. But it is in its biological composition, as living things such as fish, algae, and insects could be altered by heat and light.”

Sea and mined salt provided me with two of the most unforgettable food-related sights I have seen in my travels. The first took place many years ago on Avery Island in Louisiana. Home of the McIlhenny family and the site of their Tabasco production, Avery Island sits on deep salt mines, through the years leased to various salt companies. The first step that gave me pause was having to sign a waiver saying, in effect, that if I was injured in any way—say buried in a mine collapse—I would not hold anyone responsible. Then, fitted with a hard hat and stiff protectors that clamped over the tips of my shoes, I rode down in a elevator to the mine where we boarded a Jeep and drove through winding passages under the soaring gray-white caves that reminded me of medieval Carcassone late on a snowy evening.

Far less claustrophobic were the huge, flat, shallow pans of salt water evaporating in the sun along roads around Trapani on the Sicilian coast. Driving by and unaware of the sea salt processing, my husband and I first thought we were looking at huge wading pools filled with milk. A closer look made it plain what we were seeing and, since then, I have never opened a container of sea salt without a mental flashback to that glorious, first sight of salt-sea air.

If an ingredient as commonplace as salt has so many diverse and complex aspects, it’s daunting to imagine what we might discover by delving into the whys and wherefores of pepper.

Restaurants that feature the specialties of India’s southern Madras region, along with those of Gujarat and Punjab in the north, cook for members of Hindu sects, such as the Jain, who adhere to the strictest vegetarian diets, shunning meat, fish, eggs, and cheese set with rennet. These restaurants were thus de facto kosher and their owners sought the corresponding certification as they realized they could attract a potential new group of customers.

About 30 years ago, I was introduced by Indian friends to just such a restaurant in Manhattan, Madras Woodlands, now relocated to Long Island. N.Y. I was unaware that it was vegetarian, and it was not yet kosher. My friends ordered an intriguing meal of savory diversity—crunchy and hotly spiced appetizer salads of crisped rice puffs and legumes, followed by a rainbow of saucy curries of mellow eggplant, okra, cauliflower and green beans, parchment crisp breads, juicy biryanis golden with saffron and flecked with dates and nuts, soothing sauces based on yogurt and black lentils, fiery but gently soft pancakes dotted with peas and onions or white cheese or coconut and cilantro. There was so much heft to flavors and rich textures that were so organoleptically satisfying, that I never missed having any meat.

Since then I have frequented Madras Mahal, a New York favorite, although others here, such as Chennai Garden and Pongal, have been well-reviewed. Outside of the northeast, you can find Madras Pavilion in Texas, Amma’s Kitchen in Cincinnati, and Pabla Indian Cuisine in Seattle.

If you have suggestions of certified kosher vegetarian Indian restaurants where you live, let us know by sending an email to life@tabletmag.com.

Newcomers to the Indian vegetarian meal might find it useful to have a brief glossary. The following are fairly typical of all such menus as are inexpensive weekday buffet lunches.

Appetizers

Iddly: snowy white, semolina-like steamed dumplings of lentil and rice, with various dips

Vadai: crisply fried lentil crullers, with various dips

Kachori: crunchy fried balls of chickpeas and green pea

Bhel puri: a tossing of rice puffs, thin noodles, golden wisps of onions, and sweet-sour sauce

Bhaji: sliced vegetables fried in a golden batter

Chaat: potato (alu), chickpeas (channa), or fruits flavored with mint and spice

Samosa: lightly fried turnovers plumped with spiced vegetables

Dosai and Breads

Dosai: huge parchment thin and crisp folded sheets of a bread-crepe baked on a stone griddle, usually plain or filled with seasoned butter-mashed potatoes

Paratha: flaky layered bread that may be stuffed

Poori: huge puffed whole wheat balloons

Chappati: unspiced whole wheat flat bread

Rice dishes

Pilaus and biryanis: sweetly scented basmati rice tossed with various vegetables, saffron, tomato, dried fruits, nuts, and spices

Main courses

Uttapam: eggless pancake omelets of rice and lentil flours filled with various vegetables

Vegetable curries: softly aromatic stews based on okra, eggplant, greenbeans, spinach, and legumes

Alu gobhi: cauliflowerets with potato, ginger, garlic, and other spices

Garnishes

Raita: yogurt sauce that may have cucumber, coriander, or spices—a must with hotly seasoned dishes

Daal: a velvety sauce of simmered yellow or, preferably, black lentils

Chutney: pungent relishes of lemon, onion, mango, and more

Desserts

Kheer: a soft sort of white custard of rice, sugar, milk, and almonds

Kulfi: milk ice cream subtly seasoned with cardamom, almonds, pistachios, and rosewater

Gulab jamon: fried squiggles of dough in sweet syrup

Here, food as metaphor deals with bread, literally and figuratively the staff of life, and salt, a real and philosophical purifier. Bread and salt represent the practical and the spiritual and, together, are part of a common Sabbath meal ritual of pouring salt on a piece of challah after saying the Motzi but before it is eaten, following the admonition of Leviticus 2:13: “Never shall you suspend the salt covenant with your God. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.” That, more or less, will be the scope of this monthly column: food as it affects and touches various aspects of our lives. Our choices and preferences can reflect our aspirations or prejudices; changing attitudes and styles redesign the meals we read about and then hunger for.

On the practical side I will bring news of delicious things to eat, where to find them or, occasionally, how to prepare them. Some columns will relate to time-honored Jewish traditions concerning food and the changing world of kashrut.

On the philosophical side, there will be descriptions and explanations of food and how it figures into lifecycle celebrations primarily in cultures where wheat or rice are the sustaining grains, from the blessings over challah and matzo to the Christian Eucharist to the wedding cake that evolved as a sweet form of bread or oat cake that was to be broken over the heads of the bride and groom in 17th and 18th century Britain. In some Slavic countries a round, flattish loaf is topped with various toys indicating professions to be placed within reach of a toddler. The first toy he or she picks up is considered a forecast of the profession that will provide money for bread in the future.

Salt figures similarly in life and lore. In Japan handfuls are strewn across the mat as a sanctifier before every sumo wrestling match. Knock a salt cellar over at the table and you will have an argument with a loved one or even worse luck unless you toss some over your shoulder to ward off the evil spirits you have angered. Salt in the wound? Bad as far as pain goes, good as far as killing bacteria. For that is the property–the ability to kill living things, by dehydrating them–that makes salt an effective preservative and explains why nothing lives in the Dead Sea and why animal foods are koshered with a salting down. In ancient Rome, salt was so precious that workers were paid with it, or with coins entitling them to a ration of it, thereby giving us our word salary although hardly anyone would accept it as payment today, unless perhaps it was an exotic black, orange, pink, or green coarse sea salt for which tastings are held in cutting-edge restaurants and, by the way, how do such salts really differ in flavor?

For gourmands, salt is essential to flavor, and no less a respected chef than André Soltner, former chef-owner of the late-lamented Lutèce, once advised that salt must be in every single dish one prepares, even sweet confections and cakes. I forgot to ask him about coffee and tea.

What would we do without it? Or, as expressed in the New Testament, Luke 14:34, “But if the salt shall lose its savour wherewith should it be seasoned?” And do without it we apparently are expected to as control-freak chefs banish salt from the table, implying they know our palates better than we do. Perhaps they are unaware of the sensory science related to salt and how no two of us experience levels of it alike, something that will be a future subject here.

Though bread and salt undoubtedly will remain staples of Jewish cuisine, that cuisine is also changing rapidly. Centuries-old and honored observances such as kosher laws are being updated and modernized in many interesting ways. How and why such things occur–sadly or happily–and what they lead to is another subject for exploration.

Thirty years ago I would never have believed that kosher dairy restaurants would virtually disappear from New York and other large cities to be replaced by Israeli-Sephardic “dairy” restaurants. These serve light and enticing falafel and hummus, pita and baba gannouj, pizza and tabbouleh, instead of heavy and enticing cheese blintzes with sour cream, scorching hot mushroom–barley or cabbage soup, eggs scrambled with lox and onions, and baskets bursting with cascades of breads and rolls, fragrant with onions and veneered with sesame or poppy seeds. A younger generation intent on keeping kosher but looking for more spicy, diverting, healthful, and fashionable dishes are flocking to Indian vegetarian restaurants in urban areas. They are de facto kosher for their Hindu customers who do not eat fish, meat, fowl, eggs, or cheeses set with rennin, the acidic enzyme in rennet that begins coagulation of milk and is produced in a cow’s stomach.

Recognizing this growing market, many of those Indian restaurateurs now go the extra mile by employing a mashgiach and having separate hand sinks in the dining room to be used before saying blessings over the food. But how a novice navigates one of those menus will be the subject of a future column as will a few of the kosher Indian vegetarian restaurants around the country.

In a way, Jews might well have been the unwitting pioneers in what is currently celebrated as fusion cooking. Now, perhaps, a new worldwide Jewish cuisine is being born that, like the old Ashkenazic and Sephardic cookery, borrows from other cultures, fusing to modern tastes while still honoring their beliefs. But as butter and schmaltz give way to olive oil, no-fat sour cream stands in for the luscious high fat original, and croutons replace gribbenes, we are left with one important question: if heartburn becomes extinct, who will buy Nexium?