Sabbath stew was developed over the centuries to conform with Jewish laws that prohibit cooking on the Sabbath. The pot is brought to a boil on Friday before the Sabbath begins, and sometimes kept on a blech or hotplate, or left in a slow oven or electric slow cooker, until the following day.
Two of the best known sabbath stews are hamin, a Sephardic dish that emerged in Spain, and cholent, an Ashkenazi dish derived from hamin that emerged later in France. Both dishes are based on a mixture of whole grains, meat, beans and potatoes.
Both stews are ultimately derived from harisa, a more simplistic, traditional Middle Eastearn porridge consisting of just cracked durum wheat berries and meat. Over the centuries various Jewish diaspora communities created their own variations of the dish based on local food resources and neighborhood influence.
There are many variations on sabbath stews, which are today staples of both the Sephardi and Ashkenazi kitchens and other communities. The slow overnight cooking allows the flavors of the various ingredients to permeate and produces the characteristic taste of each local stew.
Background and origins
In traditional Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi families, stew is the hot main course of the midday Shabbat meal served on Saturdays typically after the morning synagogue services for practicing Jews. Secular Jewish families also serve stews like cholent or eat them in Israeli restaurants. For practicing Jews, lighting a fire and cooking food are among the activities prohibited on Shabbat by the written Torah. Therefore, cooked Shabbat food must be prepared before the onset of the Jewish Shabbat at sunset Friday night.
Basis in religious tradition
Very little documentation of Jewish diet before the 6th century exists except in small circles and the scriptures from the Torah. Around the reign of King Herod in the first century BCE, a divergence in scholarship led to three practices of halacha: the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes. Modern Jews claim descent from the Pharisees as the strictest observation of halacha. After the destruction of the 2nd Temple, Rabbinical authorities began to work on the Mishnah to preserve Oral Law in an attempt to remain unified on halachic rulings. The Karaites often disagreed with Rabbinic rulings like the kosher status of chickens and eggs or whether fire is allowed to burn during shabbat leading to avoidance of candle light the entire day. This stems from the verse "You shall not [burn] (Heb: bi'er the pi'el form of ba'ar) a fire in any of your dwellings on the day of Shabbat." Rabbinic Judaism however, the qal verb form ba'ar is understood to mean "burn", whereas the pi'el form (present here) is understood to be not intensive but causative. (The rule being that the pi'el of a stative verb will be causative, instead of the usual hif'il.) Hence bi'er means "kindle", which is why Rabbinic Judaism prohibits only starting a fire on Shabbat. Historian Aaron Gross proposes this caused a rise in popularity of shabbat stews as a hot meal.
History
As the Jewish diaspora grew with Jewish migrations into Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East and Central Asia, Jewish diaspora communities developed different Sabbath stews and other foodstuffs based on the local climate, available ingredients and local influence.
Early traces
Jews living in Israel before the destruction of the Second Temple likely ate the Mediterranean Triad: grain, oil and wine, which were available at low cost and vast amounts. While both wheat and barley were grown in Israel, barley was more likely to supplement inland Palestine. Cooper argues wheat would have been twice as expensive as barley which could grow in rougher soils closer to Jerusalem. Barley could also be harvested earlier ensuring multiple crops in the same season.
Meats were considered "luxury" goods that few could afford except on special occasions like shabbat and other holidays. Lambs and goats would have been popular as they grazed in arid climates and provided supplementary products like wool and milk while cattle were more expensive to maintain and priced as sacrificial.
Shabbat stews of the Bukharian Jews and Mizrahi Jews in the Asian Central Steppe who trace their diaspora to Babylonian exile have the most distinct versions of shabbat stews that relate closest to their non-Jewish neighbors and often resembled the closed proposed ingredients and methods to the original harisa.