Seductive Flavors of Sephardic Cooking
with Joyce Goldstein and Judy Frankel
Mark your calendars for a rare treat!
Joyce Goldstein is one of the foremost authorities on some of the most sublime cuisine in the world: Sephardic cooking. Judy Frankel is a leading exponent of "Ladino" music - the music of the Sephardic Jews - and will introduce us to Sephardic history via its music.
Sephardim (from the Hebrew Sefarad referring to Spain) are those Jews who lived in Spain and Portugal from the beginning of the 1st century until
their persecution and mass expulsion from those countries in the last decadesof the 15th century.
The Sephardim initially fled to North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, many eventually settling in such countries as France, Holland, England,
Italy, and the Balkans. Salonika (Thessaloníki) in Macedonia and the city of Amsterdam became major sites of Sephardic settlement. The Sephardim were noted for their cultural and intellectual achievements. These transplanted Jews largely retained their native Judeo-Spanish
language (Ladino), literature, songs and customs.
The religious rituals of the Sephardim developed from the Babylonian tradition.
The first Jewish congregation in America was founded in New York in 1654.
Today, only about 10% of world Jewry are Sephardim, the remaining Jews being referred to as Ashkenazim.
Ashkenazim (from the Hebrew Ashkenaz) is the name that the Jews themselves used for Germany (the area along the Rhine where the Allemani tribe once lived). In the 10th century, these Jewish merchants settled in France and Germany.
Sephardic Cuisine
The following is the introduction to Saffron Shores, Joyce Goldstein's book of recipes from the Southern Mediterranean.
Most Jews in America are of Ashkenazic origins; that is, their families come from Eastern and Central Europe. It is Ashkenazic cuisine that most Americans think of as Jewish food.
Rib-sticking dishes such as matzoh ball soup, gefilte fish, brisket and latkes, kugel, challah, and rugelach are well known and well loved. Over the past twenty years, interest in Mediterranean food has been growing. Flavorful and healthful, it has been embraced by chefs and food companies alike. Because of this spotlight on the Mediterranean, the cuisine of the Sephardic, or Mediterranean, Jews is now getting the attention it deserves. Sefarad was the Hebrew name given to the Iberian peninsula in ancient times. Any Jewish food that is not Ashkenazic comes under this broad title. The term Sephardic, however, can apply to quite diverse cuisines and cultural influences.
While the Ashkenazim maintained a rather closed community, the Sephardim were outgoing and participated actively in whatever community they lived in. They shared recipes and culinary traditions with their non-Jewish neighbors. Their food reflected the cuisine of their homeland but adapted to follow the kosher laws.
In my book Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the ItalianJewish Kitchen, I wrote about the history of the Jews in Italy, where the Sephardim joined the ltalkim (native Italian Jews) and Ashkenazim (Germanic Jews) and the Levantine Jews in such centers as Rome, Ferrara, and Venice. This Italian food showed the diverse influences of Sephardic and Ashkenazic roots, with the Sephardic dominating. In Sephardic Flavors: Jewish Cooking of the Mediterranean, I explored classic Sephardic (]udeo-Spanish) cuisine, which combines Turkish and Balkan cooking with that of Iberian Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire, more of the Northern Mediterranean diaspora. My curiosity and palate piqued, I had to continue this culinary adventure and explore the food of the Jews who lived on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. I wanted to learn more about the Maghrebi cooking of the North African Jews, which incorporates the foods of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. While not purely Sephardic, as much of this cuisine existed before the arrival of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula, the taste interplay between North Africa and the Iberian peninsula is evident in many a bite. Judeo-Arabic cooking, also considered Sephardic, has its roots in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. Sephardic cuisines defy narrow definition and description. Many of the dishes are distinctly regional, idiosyncratic from country to country, city to city. (Diversity is the key.) This book is about the sensual cuisines of Sephardic Jews in the Muslim lands of North Africa and the Arabic countries that line the saffron shores.
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Price: $75 for members
$85 for non-members
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San Francisco, CA 94164-0584
