No starter-main-dessert here, but the logic of a migrant and make-do cuisine: a big pot that simmers for a long time and feeds for several days, the Friday night broth inherited from Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, the snack bought on a New York street corner, the coffee that keeps you awake for work, and the pastry kept in a tin box. You cook cheaply, you cook to last, you cook without ceremony.

In poor Ashkenazi cooking, nothing is wasted: rendered chicken fat with onions (schmaltz and gribenes) replaces expensive butter and flavors everything — soups, sandwiches, stuffings. It's the taste of domestic economy in Eastern European Jewish families transplanted to America, the taste of Dworkin's childhood in Camden.