Gefilte fish: grey, tasteless, blobby, stuck in the shtetl-y past. Or is it?
Elizabeth Alpern, Jackie Lilinshtein and Jeffrey Yoskowitz, the three 20-something Brooklyn friends who co-founded The Gefilteria, are rapidly changing the food’s old-world associations. According to their manifesto, The Gefilteria hopes to reclaim time-honored foods with care not only for how they taste, but also how they’re sourced.
The trio gets whitefish and pike from the Great Lakes and salmon from the Pacific for their better-than-authentic gefilte. Then they bake, rather than boil, the fish into loaves which they slice and top with heaping spoonfuls of both sweet beet and spicy carrot horseradish. The combination of flavors is fresh, just a touch sweet, and delightful with its zesty kick.
Along with their increasingly popular—and kosher for Passover!—gefilte fish and horseradish, the Gefilteria sells kvass, a fermented beet beverage, on their website and at select locations. We won’t tell if you try to pass their gefilte fish off as your own—but just make sure to hide the cute packaging.
You can enter the raffle up to 6 times. See below for details!
Update, March 15: …and we have winners! Jenna C. from Astoria, Queens is taking home a loaf of gefilte fish and Ruth V. from Point Pleasant, PA has won a new book to share with her grandchildren. Enjoy, and thanks to everyone who entered!
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.