The Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from the Jewish Tradition
by Nina Jaffe

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Book Reviews of The Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from the Jewish Tradition

Book Review: A Cindrella tale and a love test from the Jewish Tradition
Summary: 5 Stars

As for Mireleh, she encounters an old man with shining eyes who gives him a small wooden stick. He sends her off to the home of Rabbi Yitskhok ben Levi, the renown scholar of Lublin, who lives with his wife and son, and explains that the stick is magic: tap in on the ground three times and anything Mireleh wishes for will appear. The young girl is taken into Rabbi Yitskhok's home as a beggar girl and allowed to stay in the attic. When the family goes to Cracow for a wedding, Mireleh longs to attend and uses the magic stick to come up with a dress. At this point we are into the familiar territory of the Cinderella story. But there is still the question of the meaning of Mireleh's words to her father and their reconciliation.

Jaffe notes that the Cinderella tale has been found in countless cultures around the world, with the earliest version being recorded in China in the 9th century. The Jewish version of the tale comes from the story "How Much Do You Love Me?" from the classic collection "Yiddish Folktales," and was apparently sent down in Poland in the 1920s. Jaffe acknowledges that the framing device of "the love test," appears in both Shakespeare and folktales from around the world as well. In Jaffe's hands this becomes a "vunder-mayse" (a wonder tale) of the sort her grandmother might have heard as a child.

"The Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from the Jewish Tradition" is illustrated by Louise August, who worked with full-color oils on rice paper, providing a rather distinctive look quite compatible with the origins of this story. Teachers or parents will find this story a nice way of showing young readers how there are variations of a well-known theme to be found in literature. What I especially liked about this one is how the elements of a different story, "the love test," are combined in the telling of this particular tale. Consequently we not only have an example of comparative literature here but a look at a more complex form of such storytelling.

Short Story Collections Books

• Books > Subjects > Children's Books > Literature & Fiction
• Religious Fiction > Jewish
• Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths > Multicultural