Some years ago the Jewish Daily Forward published an essay of mine entitled Trans Fat: How a Staple of Pareve Foods is Hurting Our Waistlines. In this essay, I explained that processed-food manufacturers at the turn of the twentieth century attracted large numbers of customers from among recent Jewish immigrants with marketing campaigns based on the fact that the partially-hydrogenated (i.e., trans) fats in newly developed shortenings were pareve, meaning that they contained no meat nor dairy ingredients. This was revolutionary, because it allowed desserts traditionally made with dairy ingredients to be made suitable for meat meals. Procter & Gamble advertised that “The Hebrew Race has been waiting for 4,000 years” for a solution to its shortening problems. Endorsements were received from rabbis and other community leaders. Margarine, Crisco, and non-dairy “whiteners” rapidly supplanted traditional fats to become an integral part of what we now consider traditional Kosher cooking. In fact there is nothing traditional about it, and a thousand years of kitchen wisdom were lost in just two generations.

In Europe, Jewish cooks used butter and cream for dairy meals, and goose or chicken fat for meat meals. Communities throughout Spain, Portugal, Greece, and the Middle East also used olive oil extensively. Coconut oil, beef fat, and other fats were used as availability allowed.

I do not advocate regularly eating desserts like these. But I do think that a slice of cake once or twice a week is fine. What desserts were served at meat meals prior to the invention of partially hydrogenated fats? I am thinking about my Grandma Rosie’s rhubarb and strawberries — in a word, remarkable. You could serve a plate of fresh and/or dried fruit, compotes, baked goods made with olive or coconut oil. The Settlement Cook Book, published in Milwaukee in 1901, includes page after page of delicious desserts. And one hundred years later, the ideas keep coming. You don’t need Crisco shortening to make a fantastic pareve or vegan dessert.

Here’s a recipe for Orange Cake, a creation of David Leite, a Portuguese-American food writer, publisher, and editor-in-chief of the award-winning Leite`s Culinaria : A Food Blog of Recipes, Food Writing, and Cooking.

David Leite’s Orange Cake 2009 (c)

4-5 large navel oranges
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 3/4 tsp. Kosher salt
5 large eggs
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups mild extra-virgin olive oil
confectioners’ sugar for sprinkling

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Place rack in center of oven and remove any other racks. Thinly coat a twelve-cup Bundt pan with olive oil, dust with flour, and set aside.
2. Finely grate the zest from 3 oranges. Set aside.
3. Squeeze juice from 4 oranges. Add a 5th orange if necessary to get 1 1/2 cups of juice. Mix together the juice and zest, and set aside.
4. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in large bowl, and set aside.
5. In another large bowl, beat eggs on medium-high for 1 minute. Slowly add sugar and continue beating about 3 minutes until thick and pale yellow. Decrease speed to low, and alternately add flour mixture and oil, starting and ending with flour. Beat until just a few wisps of flour remain. Add orange juice/zest mixture, and whirl for just a few seconds to mix.
6. Pour batter into Bundt pan and bake 1 1/4 hrs until cake tester comes out with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Cover lightly with foil if top is browning too much. Cool 15 minutes on a wire rack.
7. Turn the cake onto a rack to cool completely. Place in a covered cake stand and let rest overnight. Just before serving, dust with powdered sugar.

David Leite says that this cake gets seriously better with age, so “don’t even think about taking a bite until the day after you make it, or even the day after that.” In other words, if you want to serve this on Friday night, buy the oranges now, and bake it on Wednesday or Thursday. He also says to use a light-colored Bundt pan because a dark pan tends to result in an unpleasant brown cake that sticks to the sides of the pan.