Bundling up in warm coats, twinkling stars peeking through green schach, decorations twinkling – something about the holiday of Sukkot is magical!
Sukkot is at its heart a harvest festival, a bountiful time of year a theme being highlighted at different events in the Metro area this week, not least of which is Ekar Farm’s Sukkot festival. It’s also a theme for our individual sukkahs, starting with the classic dried gourds hanging from our bamboo roofs.
But what about other ways to celebrate the harvest? In a recent Forward article, Leah Koenig hunted down Sukkot traditions and rituals from across the globe. Here are our favorites:
America: We already mentioned the dried corn, and most of the decorations found in American sukkahs are, unsurprisingly, connected to Thanksgiving. For that matter, so is the food: apple crisp, butternut squash soup, and acorn stuffed with wild rice are autumnal, American dishes perfect for eating in the cold outdoors.
Ashkenazi Europe: Decorations here skew biblical, with an emphasis on the ushpizin, the seven heavenly guests we invite, one per night, into our sukkah: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David. A featured dessert in German communities is lebkuchen, a spiced thick and chewy honey cookie.
Bukhara: Coming from Central Asia, it’s not surprising that Bukhari sukkahs are adorned with silk and woven fabrics. Fruits and herbs round out the decorations, lending a perfumed fragrance to the night. Not dissimilar to the Polish tradition of stuffed cabbage, meat and rice take center stage, but here are wrapped in vine leaves.
Italy: Paintings and engraving of biblical scenes adorn the walls of Italian sukkahs. Dessert is bollo, a sweetened yeast cake studded with dried fruit — which come to think of it actually sounds a lot like Panettone.
Morocco: According to renowned food historian and cook Claudia Roden, a beautifully decorated chair or stool, representing either Elijah or the ushpizin features in North Africa. Sukkahs are built on rooftop terraces and filled with rugs, woven cushions and embroidered curtains.
Syria: Here sukkahs are decorated with shivat ha’minim, seven species: barley, wheat, dates, figs, pomegranates, olives and grapes. Like in Bukhara and Poland, meat and rice are featured in different dishes, but with distinctly Syrian spices.
What are your Sukkot customs? Do you have any special decorations, or recipes that you serve specifically at this time of year?
