What's the obsession with "dips" for every shab

Elfrida ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:44 am

amother OP wrote:

c'mon, I made very clear above--theme meaning a type of cuisine. plenty of people have ethnic cuisines for shabbat. nobody thought a themed shabbat means a star wars or harry potter shabbat.

I've never heard of Shabbos meals with an ethnic theme either.

If anything, our shabbos meals are ashkenazi Jewish, with Israeli influence. We've never had Italian or Mexican or Chinese shabbos meals.

amother

Mocha

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:45 am

I also don't really get it. I never do dips. It just makes people fill up on challah and most dips (aside from chummus) are not great nutritionally either. I get lots of repeat guests, so I don't think anyone finds it a problem, but I go out enough that I really am the only one I know who skips them entirely and I wonder why it's so widespread.

synthy ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:48 am

DrMom wrote:

I'm with you, OP.

Plain challah is warm and tasty, and doesn't need things smeared on it to be delicious. I can do without.

Also, why do people here call them "dips?" These things are more "spreads" than "dips." Nobody dips their challah into them like you'd dip a tortilla chip into salsa.

You spread tomato dip on your challah?

amother

Myrtle

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:50 am

I love dips and make and eat lots of them. If I went to a home that didn’t serve any dips, I would stuff myself up in the challah because I would assume there isn’t being much food later on either.

I grew up with dips and as does DH. In his family they never gave less than 12 dips every shabbos as different kids like different dips. It’s not a “trend” as far as I was brought up. It’s just how we had Shabbos

amother

Linen

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:51 am

I'm not obsessed.
I actually don't like the idea of dips and think it is poor man's food (torah based comcept)concept. You'll come to my house and see a dip festival going. My children are picky eaters. Their not touching fish meat kugel etc.so I'm glad they fill up on dips. If they get some techina or chumas in there they had protein and carbs.
I'm good with that

↑ DrMom ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:54 am

synthy wrote:

You spread tomato dip on your challah?

No idea what tomato dip is. Some sort of sun-dried tomato-based pesto? We're not into these things so much. Maybe some humous, but that's about it. We find good warm challah is tasty on its own.

Like OP, I don't find it weird that people serve these things on occasion, but I find it weird that people consider them a must-have.

seeker ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:58 am

I'm not obsessed but I'm annoyed that it's become an expectation. I think we were much healthier when everyone was served a piece of challah dipped in salt, you enjoyed it and if it was especially fresh and tasty went for another, and then you moved on to proteins and normal sides. Now everyone just sits around munching on cheap carbs, many of the favorite dips have sugar, most are mostly mayo and the rest are oily. If you've done a half decent job procuring dips then most people take one slice after another of challah to enjoy dipping, and seem to forget there's a whole meal of real food to be had until I start pushing the fish around.

DH feels it's not a proper shabbos meal without the dips and by now the kids would all agree because they're used to it. But I think it's making everyone fat and stupid.

We aren't in a place where you need to fill up on bread and use dips to make it exciting because you can only afford one chicken leg per person. I ate at a couple of homes like that in Yerushalayim (before you start wagging tongues about how terrible it is to send seminary girls to families who can't feed their own, these were personal family friends who wanted nothing more than to host us in EY and begged us to come. Apparently generosity is not a function of how much you have.)

↑ DrMom ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 12:58 am

Elfrida wrote:

Really? We cook all sorts of different cuisines for Shabbat meals. We like to experiment, as do many of our friends.

↑ Elfrida ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:05 am

DrMom wrote:

Really? We cook all sorts of different cuisines for Shabbat meals. We like to experiment, as do many of our friends.

Yes, really. We don't stick rigidly to the same menu every week, but it's within the same broad range. We don't do themed shabbos meals.

amother

Jade ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:10 am

I'm in Israel and until recently first course was an array of dips and salatim. In my experience after living here many years it also became much more widespread than it used to be in terms of the sheer amount served at every meal. I think it may have seeped more into the Ashkenazi community who was exposed it from the Sephardi/ Mizrachi communities and from there to the US and other countries.
I never felt so much peer pressure, but rather that it is a delicious way to start the meal. However, it really does cause us to eat way more Challa than we would otherwise and leaves little room for the rest of the meal. For this reason I have stopped making so much and have one or two at the most.

amother

Steelblue

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:11 am

It definitely creeped in from the Israelis, except us Israelis have delicious mostly nutritious dips and salads like tchina, chumus, matbucha, eggplant, beets salad, cabbage salad, roasted peppers etc...
Americans decided to take a little bit of a vegetable (onions/jalapeno/pickles/garlic/peppers etc) , drown it in mayo and now think they are like the Israelis with a bunch of dips!! Very Happy

Back in the day, when I ate by my American friends, they had gefilte + chrain + Cole slaw, that's it!! It was so strange to me!

amother

Brickred

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:13 am

I feel like pomegranate supermarket came up with the dips idea when they made a dip department with tastings

We don't do a dip course but we have 2-3 dips that go along with the fish course.
We always had chrain and also dipped our challah into the fish sauce until dips came around to make it more exciting 🙂

↑ synthy

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:14 am

DrMom wrote:

Ok, so that explains why you don’t find it a must have 😆

Brit in Israel ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:18 am

Dips for challah has been around for years, just there wasn't an variety without social media and as much travelling everyone did what there family did each week. For the Ashkenazim they would dip the challah in mayo and charein. Sefardim prob had more matbucha and babaganush styles.
I love that now we have the influence of other culture we have healthier options.

If I have time I cook a bunch that freeze well and take out each week, otherwise we buy 3 that have a date for a couple of weeks and enjoy dipping our challa in.

↑ giftedmom ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:23 am

amother Jade wrote:

Now that I think about it yes it must be sefardi/mizrachi as well. When we were in Morocco they served like 20 different dips and salads by every meal.

↑ seeker ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:24 am

amother Steelblue wrote:

Back in the day, when I ate by my American friends, they had gefilte + chrain + Cole slaw, that's it!! It was so strange to me!

Yes!!! Salatim course is yum. But I'm too lazy - no, make that busy with the other wonderful shabbos preps - to cut up a zillion veggies like my Israeli friends do. Ergo - dips. I do one that's garlic roasted in oil. Everything else is either what you can toss in a blender or buy in a container. It's a real treat to get invited to a salatim family.

But anyway where I come from even when we do have nice salads, they're served alongside the main course. Not an extended challah course.

Frankly I have limited patience for this timewise also. I'm more introverted (in person lol). I haven't found that people cut out a different course in favor of the extended challah. You still need to get through fish, soup, main, and dessert. Add sitting around and chilling over the challah for a while and I'm tired already especially if it's a not early Friday night. I want my real food.

Dh is never going to change this so whatever. I don't hate it that much, I'm just saying I relate to the likes of OP who suddenly see dips all over and go "huh?"

amother

↑ Chocolate ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:27 am

amother Brickred wrote:

It was sold in many stores in Brooklyn way before pomegranate existed.

twizzlers1

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:29 am

We didn’t when we lived in America but now we’ve been in Israel for so long. It’s just one of our courses. I buy different tips each week and I tend to make the same ones. There’s not really so much pressure but my family really likes them. I don’t think you should feel pressure and if you make them, that’s great! I make really simple meals and this is an easy course that I can do served with a salad. Sometimes I guess that don’t like them including my dad and that’s OK. No pressure to eat them.

↑ Brit in Israel ↓

Mon, Sep 23 2024, 1:30 am

seeker wrote:

I bring my fish straight to the table so they eat it at the same time as the dips. Especially if I'm serving morrocon style talpia, we enjoy it with challah and if we wait we have finished the challah before the fish comes. It also keeps it all as one course.