Ellen Braunstein
Ethel Greenwald Hofman is a widely syndicated Jewish food and travel columnist and book author who has lived in the Philadelphia area for the past 60 years.
Her many books include “Everyday Cooking for the Jewish Home” and a memoir, “Mackerel at Midnight: Growing Up Jewish on a Remote Scottish Island. She is a former food writer for the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and still writes for Jewish News Syndicate.
“I like writing about Jewish life in general, especially food and culture,” she said. “I like to talk about the people, where they come from, not just the recipes.”
She learned about Jewish cooking in her mother’s kitchen in the Shetland Islands north of Scotland. Hers was the only Jewish family in town. The nearest Jewish community was 300 miles away.
Her parents were shopkeepers, she said. The family moved to the island town of Lerwick from Glasgow, where her mother came from. Her father had emigrated to Scotland from Belarus.
“They were really well respected and assimilated in the community,” she said.
Her family was isolated from Jewish life, but they had a weekly Shabbat dinner.
“We ate mostly vegetarian, but we always had a chicken on Friday night,” she said.
“My mother really gave us a strong Jewish identity so that when I went to University of Glasgow, I joined every Jewish organization I could find,” she said.
After graduating from Glasgow College of Home Economics with a degree in nutrition and institutional management, Hofman taught home economics on the islands to earn her fare to the United States.
“My parents really couldn’t afford it,” she said. “We weren’t poor, but there was no extra money.”
She came to the U.S. in her early 20s for a year-long internship in dietetics at Billings Hospital at the University of Chicago.
“At the time, I had never seen an eggplant or zucchini,” she said. “We ate healthy and wholesome, but these were exotic ingredients to me.”
The U.S. government extended her visa, and she became chief administrative dietician at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. There she met her husband Dr. Walter Hofman, a forensic pathologist who later was elected coroner in Montgomery County.
“It was an amazing marriage of 53 years,” said Hofman, whose husband died several years ago. “He had his vocation. I had mine,” she said. “We respected each other’s careers.”
She is now writing a mystery based on one of her husband’s forensic cases.
Hofman traveled the world to learn about food and culture. She spent time in Switzerland, studying continental cuisine with local chefs and honed her gourmet cooking skills at Le Cordon Bleu in London. She also had the opportunity to collaborate with renowned industry figures such as Emeril Lagasse, Jacques Pépin and Julia Child, from whom she received master cooking classes.
She founded and managed Ethel Hofman’s Instant Gourmet, Philadelphia’s first cooking school.
“There was so much opportunity here that I wouldn’t have had in the U.K.,” she said.
She has immersed herself in the Conservative Jewish community at Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Wynnewood. With her husband’s death several years ago, she was amazed by the support of synagogue members. Similarly, she returned from London with COVID in December and her synagogue community was equally helpful.
“It’s so important to have a connection to your synagogue because you can give, but you also get back,” said Hofman, who serves on the Israel advocacy committee.
Hofman has two sons. Andrew, a film animator, lives in Los Angeles. Michael, an electrician, lives in Bethesda, Maryland. She has three granddaughters and one grandson.
Hofman has what she describes as a working kitchen, where she develops recipes and photographs food.
“It doesn’t have bare counters and it’s convenient,” she said. “You don’t have to go 20 steps between the refrigerator and the stove. It has to be well planned.”
Before she downsized, Hofman had Viking appliances in her house of 45 years. Her dining room and kitchen opened into one big room.
“My table seated 15 to 20 people. On Monday, I might have four people coming for Shabbat dinner. Then it would snowball, and I’d have 15 or 16,” said Hofman, who was then a member of Beth David Reform Congregation in Gladwyne.
Hofman also volunteers for ElderNet, a nonprofit that takes people shopping, to the bank or to doctor appointments. Every time she goes to Costco, Hofman loads up on items for ElderNet’s food bank.
“I’m very involved,” said Hofman, who is unstoppable in her 80s. “In fact, there’s not enough hours in the day.”
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.
