Cholent, Hamin, and Adafina: Jewish Sabbath Stews Explained

Many Jews prepare slow-cooked stew for the Sabbath. The stew is typically prepared on Friday and left to cook until lunchtime on Saturday, to comply with the prohibition of actively cooking on the Sabbath. Around the world, the stew uses diverse ingredients. It also has diverse names, some of which reflect a line in the Mishnah about food preparation for the Sabbath: tomnin et ha-ḥamin, “[one may] hide/cover/bury the hot [water/food]” (m. Shabbat 2:7). Some of these names focus on the hot food, such as hamin (used in Ladino, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Arabic, and Modern Hebrew) and cholent/tsholent (Yiddish and Jewish English, stemming from medieval Judeo-French, spoken by the grandparents of some early Yiddish speakers). Other words emphasize how the food is kept warm: adafina (North African Judeo-Arabic) means “covered”; t’bit (Iraqi Judeo-Arabic) means “spend the night.”