Gribenes

The word gribenes is related to the German Griebe (plural Grieben) meaning "piece of fat, crackling" (from the Old High German griobo via the Middle High German griebe),^[2] where Griebenschmalz is schmaltz from which the cracklings have not been removed.

A favored food in the past among Ashkenazi Jews,^[2][3] gribenes appears in Jewish stories and parables, for example in the work of the Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik.^[4] As with other cracklings, gribenes are a byproduct of rendering animal fat to produce cooking fat, in this case kosher schmaltz.^[5][2][3]

Gribenes can be used as an ingredient in dishes like kasha varnishkes, fleishig kugel, and gehakte leber.^[6]

Gribenes is often associated with the Jewish holidays Hanukkah and Rosh Hashanah.^[2][3] Traditionally, gribenes were served with potato kugel or latkes during Hanukkah.^[3][7] It is also associated with Passover, because large amounts of schmaltz, with its resulting byproduct gribenes, were traditionally used in Passover recipes.^[2][8]

Gribenes can be eaten as a snack on rye or pumpernickel bread with salt,^[9] or used in recipes such as chopped liver,^[10] or all of the above.^[8] It is often served as a side dish with pastrami on rye or hot dogs.^[10][11]

The dish is eaten as a midnight snack,^[12] or appetizer.^[2][11] In Louisiana, Jews add gribenes to jambalaya in place of (treyf) shrimp.^[2] It was served to children on challah bread as a treat.^[3] It can also be served in a GLT, a modified version of a BLT sandwich that replaces bacon with gribenes.^[13]

• Jewish cuisine
• List of chicken dishes
• Taillé aux greubons
• Grammeln, cvarci, and salo - similar European dishes derived from pork fat