The Book Of Jewish Food: An Odyssey From Samarkand To New York (1996) - Plot & Excerpts
Easily the best cookbook I've ever read. I never expected to discover my own family history in a cookbook but...The morning before I went to the library to pick this cookbook up I went to the gym. My spinning class ends at the same time an aqua-aerobics class that has a lot of Jewish grandmothers in it. That day the grannies were talking about how they were all getting rid of their cookbooks (give them to me!!!) in favor of internet recipes. How sad...within an hour of picking this cookbook up I knew if I owned it, I could never get rid of it. In fact, I'm now on the hunt for a nice used copy to purchase for myself.This cookbook does not have gorgeous, mouth-watering photographs of food. It does not have the best recipes I've ever used (Jamie Oliver gets that distinction). What it does have is fascinating writing about Jewish history and culture as it relates to food. I could not put this book down. I never knew a cookbook could be a page-turner!Yes, I did try some recipes...Arroz kon Leche - yummy!, potato salad, cabbage in sour cream, a curried peas with cheese. They were all good. Then I got to reading the section about Jews in Italy. I didn't know those awesome fried artichokes in Rome where brought there by Sicilian Jews. My mouth waters just thinking about them! It was that paragraph or two about Jews in Sicily where curosity got the better of me and I did more research on my own. And in that research I found my family was one of the Sicilian Jewish families to convert during the expulsion of 1492! I seriously kept staring at the page and going back it over and over again...but there it was. Extraordinary! I'll be adding this book to my own collection as soon as possible. I highly recommend this one all foodies!
Simply the best cook book I've ever come across, a delight from start to finish. I originally bought this book as a birthday present for a friend of mine...but before it had a chance to disappear in layers of gift wrap, I had a sneak look...and hours later I was still utterly engrossed in reading about the history of Jewish food and a people who have had to endure more than is humanly possible over the centuries. The stories attached to the recipes are both moving and thought-provoking, often funny and told with great warmth and humanity.The recipes are easy to follow, invariably delicious and take the reader around the world, back and forth in time, leading to a very different culinary experience than other cook books do. Frankly, no kitchen or book shelf should be without this book.
What do You think about The Book Of Jewish Food: An Odyssey From Samarkand To New York (1996)?
I love this book, less for its recipes (although the ones I tried were actually pretty good, if written in a less user-friendly way than I'm used to) than for the many well-written and enjoyable history sections throughout. I really enjoyed reading about how Jewish cuisine developed in different world regions. It's a fun book to take out on a long Friday night and flip through, reading whatever section interests you at the time. It was an expensive book, but I really love it and I think it makes a beautiful gift.
—K
