The custom of an apple in honey is not as ancient as it seems

On Rosh Hashanah Eve, just before the meal, the same small gesture appears in almost every Jewish home: an apple slice is dipped in honey, and we wish for a happy and sweet New Year. Not for a healthy, not successful, not even happy year. sweetheart An interesting choice of a word that describes a taste to describe a life we ​​wish for ourselves.

The connection is so strong that it also spilled from the plate to the rim. In Hebrew a child is “sweet”, in English a loved one is sweetheart, and a wish before bed is sweet dreams, in Italian la dolce vita is “the sweet life”. The language indicates how much sweetness we identify with pleasant things. On Rosh Hashanah the metaphor returns to the plate.

When the future gets a taste

The custom of an apple in honey is not as ancient as it seems. In the Talmud there are signs of Rosh Hashanah such as dates, leeks, beets and pumpkins. The custom known today of eating an apple with honey is documented in Ashkenazi sources of the Middle Ages, including the “Tor” – a Halacha book from the 14th century. In some exegetical sources it has been suggested that “honey” in the Bible, at least in some contexts, may also refer to date honey (silan) or fruit syrup and not just bee honey.

During the Chinese New Year, many regions eat Nian Gao – a sticky rice-based cake, which is also served in sweet versions. Its symbolic meaning is also based on a play on words: the word cake – gāo – sounds like the word “tall”, so the food is associated with ascent, progress and prosperity.

Even in Nowruz, the spring holiday that marks the new year in the Persian calendar and is celebrated in Iran and other communities in Central Asia and the Middle East, there is a place for sweetness. Haft-Sin, seven symbolic items, are placed on the traditional holiday table, including Samano, a thick and sweet food made from wheat sprouts. During germination, enzymes break down some of the starch into simpler sugars, so you can get sweetness even without added sugar. The Samano symbolizes abundance and fertility, alongside sprouts that represent renewal and other items, each of which carries a blessing for the new year.

The meanings differ from culture to culture, yet the sweetness returns in rituals of initiation and celebration and wishes for a good future.

It is worth noting that sweetness is not necessarily sugar. Here it comes from honey, in China – from sticky rice cake, and in Iran – from Samano, which is made from sprouted wheat. The sweetness does not stand on its own, it is related to the food, the time and the ritual.

The sweetness today is no longer reserved for a holiday or a special event. We drink a sugary drink on the way to work, consume sugar in breakfast cereals, yogurt, sauces, spreads and of course pastries, ice creams and sweets.

Our attraction to sweets begins long before the holidays are celebrated. Already in infancy there is a biological tendency to respond positively to sweet taste, although taste preferences are shaped and changed also under the influence of exposure, experience and the environment. Genetics may play another part: a study from Umeå University in Sweden, published in 2023 in the journal Nutrients, examined 187 pairs of mothers and their children and found links between certain genetic differences and a preference or consumption of sweet foods. One of the evolutionary hypotheses is that sweetness served as a cue for the presence of carbohydrates and a source of energy. This tendency may have contributed to the fact that in different cultures the sweet taste became a symbol of something desirable and good.

Sweet is a taste, sugar is an ingredient

It is worth stopping at a distinction that is sometimes lost in the nutritional discourse: “sweet” and “sugar” are not the same thing. Sweetness is a taste sensation. We feel sweetness in an apple, a date, milk, honey, a cake, a sweetened drink or a product sweetened with a non-sugar sweetener. From the point of view of the tongue, they may all be perceived as sweet, but nutritionally, the distance between them is great.

A whole apple contains sugar found within the natural structure of the fruit, along with water, fiber, vitamins and plant compounds. In honey, however, most of the carbohydrates are sugars. The World Health Organization defines them as “free sugars” – sugars added to food or drink, as well as those found naturally in honey, syrups and fruit juices. The sugar inside a whole fruit is not included in this definition. So an apple and honey may be equally sweet, but nutritionally they are not the same food.

Leave the sweet in its place

The dual status of sweetness deserves attention. On the eve of the holiday we dip an apple in honey and load the sweetness with hopes for the whole year. The day after she returns to star in lists of things that need to be reduced. There is no need to resolve this contradiction by giving up the honey.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends limiting free sugars to less than 10% of daily energy intake, and suggests a further reduction below 5%. This is a recommendation concerning the amount of sugars in the menu and not the actual preference for a sweet taste. Honey is not exempt from the recommendation just because it is natural. But a spoonful of honey as part of a holiday tradition is not the same as a high daily consumption of free sugars.

So on Rosh Hashanah there is no reason to treat the honey saucer as a nutritional problem. You can dip the apple in it, bless and eat it with pleasure. Maybe there is even something accurate in the way they did it before us: they didn’t ask for a year full of sugar. They asked for a sweet year. There is a big difference between the two, and it leaves room for both good nutrition and everything we hope to find in the new year.