Knish
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A knish (Template:Pron-en with a "k") or knysh is an Eastern European,[1] and Yiddish snack food made popular in America by Jewish immigrants, eaten widely by Jewish and non-Jewish peoples alike.
History
Immigrants who arrived from Russia sometime around 1900 brought knishes to America. Knish is a Yiddish word that was derived from the Russian knysh, meaning "a kind of bun." It is described in the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases as "a baked or fried dumpling made of flaky dough with filling." The first knish bakery was founded in New York in 1910."[2]
A knish consists of a filling covered with dough that is either baked, grilled, or deep fried. Knishes can be purchased from street vendors in urban areas with a large Jewish population, sometimes at a hot dog stand.
In the most traditional versions, the filling is made entirely of mashed potato, ground meat, sauerkraut, onions, kasha (buckwheat groats) or cheese. More modern varieties of fillings feature sweet potatoes, black beans, fruit, broccoli, tofu or spinach.
Many cultures have variations on baked, grilled, or fried dough-covered snacks similar to the knish: the Cornish pasty, the Scottish Bridie, the Jamaican patty, the Spanish and Latin American empanada, the Portuguese rissole, the Italian calzone, the South Asian samosa, the Russian pirozhki, and the Levantine fatayer.
Knishes may be round, rectangular or square. They may be entirely covered in dough or some of the filling may peek out of the top. Sizes range from those that can be eaten in a single bite hors d'oeuvre to sandwich-sized.
See also
References
- ^ Wasserman, Tina. "Cooking: The Ultimate Jewish Finger Food". Reform Judaism Magazine. Retrieved 2010-09-14.
- ^ (Kugel, Knishes, and Other Tasty Dishes by Nina Yellin, 2001)
Knish are mentioned in Whatever Works, a 2009 Woody Allen film.
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