Shavuot and Jewish food at functions

 Shavuot.

It's the most fascinating Jewish festival and we love it. We can't get enough of it because it's a celebration of food and that's what the global Jewish community simply adore. It is that time of the year when we get out all of our pots and pans in the kitchen, and whip up cheesecakes. Yes folks, today is Shavuot and it's a day of wanton indulgence, extravagant living and completely forgetting that diet you always hoped would keep the weight off permanently.

Today we recite another reading of the Ten Commandments and just cook up the sweetest feast of them all, apart from all of our other wonderful days of rejoicing and song. Shavuot is the day every Jew across the world devours cheesecakes as if they were going out of fashion. All of those dairy products we may have assumed were always there for our delectation, are back on the culinary agenda if only for a couple of days or so. 

Whereas Chanukah gives us doughnuts and Pesach gives us matza, Shavuot does it stylishly with cheesecake. There is something inherently satisfying about any cake regardless of its derivation but cheesecake is just the most guilty pleasure of them all. We know we shouldn't eat things that are designed to pile on the pounds but cheesecake. That's different. There are the traditional plain cheesecakes, strawberry and chocolate flavoured cheesecakes and then there are the cheesecakes that just melt in your mouth. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing and cheesecake never lets you down.

From a personal point of view, cheesecake stirs up all kinds of pleasant memories. My wonderful and lovely late mum Sybil insisted on New York Cheesecake in the last months of her life. It was the one cake that probably reminded her of what life was like when she was a child. Now, any clear recollection of my mum's passion for cheesecake is blurred by time but it must have been the one dessert or sweet treat that transported my mum right back to the end of the Second World War when she was a child.

But today marks a day of traditional cheesecake eating, fressing, increasing those calories by the lorryload and disregarding the consequences to our waist line.And yet whenever did that bother my lovely Jewish friends and families? At weddings, barmitzvahs and batmitzvahs, we descend on groaning tables of excessive cholesterol, fish balls by the thousand, beigels containing smoked salmon and cream cheese, while egg mayonnaise and tuna beigels are noshed down ravenously.

Then, shortly before the main meal, we're tempted with an endless supply of vol au vents, viennas( Jewish sausages, mushroom flavoured vol au vents crust pastries and then the most irresistible cakes, biscuits and crisps that seem to be available for most of the late afternoon. And that's before the main meal itself. What then happens is that elegantly attired waiters and waitresses float out of the kitchen with all the grace of ballet dancers. With tray in hand, bowls of  lokshen chicken soup balanced precariously in both hands and a modicum of good humour always at their disposal, the said wedding or barmitzvah or batmitzvah would get underway with dancing to follow.

You remember vividly now a family wedding from your childhood with some affection. Before the biggest meal of all time our friendly waiters and waitresses would weave their way in and out of the assembled guests. Here were pots of tea and coffee accompanied by a vast array of sandwiches, biscuits, cakes and the inevitable Black Forest Gateau, a staple of the 1970s sweet trolley. There were thick layers of chocolate, cream oozing from every crevice, jam and, quite possibly scones, if we'd politely asked for them.

By now, we were full to bursting point and not really looking forward to our meal since our insatiable appetites were still demanding more. Now of course these lavish meals of chicken soup followed by liver, egg and onion, beef, lamb or chicken, chicken schnitzel, would be served with roast potatoes and yet more dozens of baby potatoes and vegetables that just kept delivering. Could we fit in the pudding afterwards? Of course we could. Undoubtedly so. There was always room for apple pie and cream, apple strudel, chocolate pudding, fruit salad and- guess what- more mouth watering cakes. If you could find a place in your stomach for cheese and biscuits then you had to be admired.

Today though, is Shavuot, the cheese cake fest, the days of Marie Antoinette cake eating and perhaps several plates of choc chip biscuits, fruit flans, blackcurrant cheesecakes, sponges, blintzes and multi flavoured deserts that take the breath away. So Ladies and Gentleman, don't hold back because you deserve those days of incessant cheesecake eating, the gastronomic self gratification that sends the loveliest taste into our mouths. Oh don't forget the innumerable cups of tea, Earl Grey tea perhaps or that coffee and hot chocolate that make Shavuot the most joyous of days. Enjoy everybody.