Schmaltz (also spelled schmalz or shmalz) is rendered (clarified) chicken or goose fat. It is an integral part of traditional Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, where it has been used for centuries in a wide array of dishes, such as chicken soup, latkes, matzah brei, chopped liver, matzah balls, fried chicken, and many others, either as a cooking fat, spread, or flavor enhancer. Etymology Schmaltz is a noun derived from the German verb schmelzen, meaning "to melt". The verb can be traced back to the Germanic root "smeltan", which survives in the Modern English verb "to smelt". The term entered English usage through Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews who used "schmaltz" to refer to kosher poultry fat; the word shmalts is the Yiddish word for rendered chicken fat. The English term "schmaltz" is derived from Yiddish and is cognate with the German term Schmalz, which refers to any rendered fat of animal origin, including lard (more fully Schweineschmalz) and clarified butter (Butterschmalz). English use tends to follow Yiddish, which limits its meaning to rendered poultry fat. History Historically, chicken has been the most popular meat in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine due to restrictions on Jews who often were not allowed to own land in Europe, and thereby were not able to tend to livestock. Schmaltz originated in the Jewish communities of north, west, and central Europe as it was an economical replacement for olive oil that typically was not available in these areas. Olive oil previously had an important role in Jewish culture. It had been used by the ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews in their Ancient Israelite cuisine prior to the forced exile of Jews from Roman Israel, and it remained popular in Sephardic and Mizrahi cuisines. As olive oil and other vegetable oils (e.g. sesame oil, which Jews had used in Mesopotamia) were unavailable in northwestern Europe, Ashkenazi Jews turned to animal sources, like their Gentile neighbors. However, Kashrut prohibited Jews from using the most common cooking fats in northern Europe, namely butter and lard. Butter, being derived from milk, cannot be used with meat under the Jewish prohibition on mixing meat and dairy, while lard is derived from pork, a meat not considered kosher. Furthermore, even among the less common fats available, tallow derived from beef or mutton would have been uneconomical, particularly given that virtually all suet (the raw material for tallow) is chelev and its consumption is forbidden. Thus Ashkenazi