How Breaking a Food Tradition Strengthened Our Family Bond

+ recipe for (Almost) My Grandmother's Brisket

With both Passover and Easter upon us, it’s a big week for traditional family recipes. The dishes we make year after year--those which have been passed down for for generations—connect us to our ancestors and remind us of who we are. These holiday foods also bond us to loved ones here today as we gather around the table together to eat.

This human connection is one of the most nourishing things about food, driving home the important (and often overlooked) truth that nutrition is much more than grams of protein or milligrams of vitamins. Nutrition is also the way we eat together and share food as a community.

With that in mind, I wanted to share a story about tradition and connection that I wrote for The Washington Post several years ago. On the surface, it’s a story about a Passover brisket, and how to cook it. But it is so much more than that. As you’ll see it’s about the bond between my mother and me, and the role tradition plays in our lives. (For the record, she gave me her blessing to tell the story.) I hope you enjoy reading it, and I hope you try the brisket recipe below as well —it’s almost exactly like the one my grandmother used to make.

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How Breaking with Brisket Tradition Strengthened Our Family Bond