Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen [Hardcover]

Joyce Goldstein (Author), Ellen Silverman (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1998

For over 5,000 years, Jewish families have lived in Italy. The cuisine that developed in their households is a remarkable melange of kosher traditions and the distinctive flavors of Italy, the Middle East, and Spain. For the first time, this wonderfully rich, little-known culinary heritage is given the attention it has long deserved. With Cucina Ebraica, celebrated chef Joyce Goldstein offers a substantive collection of superb (and completely kosher) Italian Jewish dishes, as well as a compelling and important culinary history. Exploring the ancient intertwining of two venerable food traditions, we discover that many Italian dishes have Jewish roots. Familiar and yet entirely new, this is a robust and delicious new side of a beloved region's cuisine. Filled with painterly photographs that evoke the richness of the Italian Jewish heritage, Cucina Ebraica is a mouthwatering collection of distinguished recipes, a reference on an extraordinary tradition, and an invitation to unexpected joys and secrets about both Italian and Jewish cookery.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jews have lived in Italy since Roman times, always part of the cultural landscape, always living in isolation of one kind or another. The word we know as ghetto comes to us from 16th-century Venice. Within the world of Jews in Italy, there are several smaller worlds: those of the native Italian Jews, of the Sephardim driven out of Spain, and of the Ashkenazim moving down from Germany and Eastern Europe. Take all those food traditions and dietary laws, squeeze them in one overarching food sensibility, and you have a very unusual way to view culture and history. Joyce Goldstein, in Cucina Ebraica, demonstrates that culture and history are edible, if not downright delicious.

Take Livornese Couscous with Meatballs, White Beans, and Greens. Couscous came to Livorno with North African Jews in the 1270s. It was a Friday-night meal, and the leftovers were served cold the next day on the Sabbath. Goldstein gives the first honest recipe for Carciofi alla Giudia (crispy fried artichokes in the Roman Jewish style) yet printed. Not all artichokes are alike, she demonstrates, and then shows you a way around the problems no one else ever manages to address to successfully cook this classic.

As she has proved in The Mediterranean Kitchen and Kitchen Conversations, Joyce Goldstein knows how to bring great food to the home kitchen. Her research is impeccable, her technique straightforward. Cucina Ebraica, this wonderful way of looking at an Italian cuisine that must answer to so many other influences, is an obvious project of love and devotion. Not to be missed. --Schuyler Ingle

Review

For many Jewish families, the menu for Rosh ha-Shannah dinner, from the chicken soup to the honey cake, is set in stone, and has been for generations.

Nonetheless, you can count on new cookbooks to appear just before Rosh ha-Shannah, the Jewish New Year celebration, which begins this year at sundown on Sunday. The older generation probably needs no help preparing the chopped liver or the chicken soup, but publishers are hoping a younger generation now taking to the stove will want a recipe for hallah or some new menu ideas or, for that matter, the precise requisites for Rosh ha-Shanah or other holidays.

This year, "Cucina Ebraica," by Joyce Goldstein Might inspire a dinner that strays from the tried and true, with its recipes for Italian Jewish dishes. Will there be howls of protest if kreplach, the meat-filled pasta similar to wontons, are replaced with stroncatelli, a kind of handmade pasta, as Ms. Goldstein, a chef and former restaraunteur in San Francisco, suggests? Perhaps. But expect compliments for the chicken roasted with orange, lemon and ginger; the gratin of potatoes and tomatoes with garlic and parsley (better done on top of the stove than in the oven), or the quinces in spiced sugar syrup.

Could there be any small corner of Italian cooking still left to be explored? You don't think so? Guess again. How about the cooking of Italy's Jewish community? It's a distinctive cuisine that mixes Sephardic, Middle Eastern and Spanish cooking traditions with Italian ingredients and methods. The Washington Post

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; First Edition edition (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811819698
• ISBN-13: 978-0811819695
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #798,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary cookbook, Buy it, you'll be glad you did., February 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen (Hardcover)

Being a true Italian, I couldn't wait to try some of the recipes in "Cucina Ebraica." To my delight, I really enjoyed the tasty recipes, in fact the recipes I made brought me back to many childhood memories especially the aromas that came from my grandmother's kitchen. "Cucina Ebraica" contains a amazing collection of simple to prepare, mouth-watering gourmet recipes. A must to try the Crostini di Peperoni, (a superb version of Bruschetta), Potato and Tomato gratin, Fresh Tuna with Peas; your family and guests will ask for seconds. Joyce Goldstein's introduction had very informative history of the Italian-Jewish culture. She also gave an educational description of the Jewish holidays and great menu suggestions for the holidays (I can't wait for the holidays to come). This book should delight the palate of every gourmet. I absolutely recommend this book.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is there a restaurant that serves this stuff somewhere?, March 12, 2003

By 

Brian Connors (Yarmouth, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen (Hardcover)

Short form: vegetables + raisins and pine nuts is a good combination.

There is a certain image of Jewish food and a certain image of Italian food in this country that is widely understood. The food in this book really is neither -- it's a unique cuisine that in some ways is a throwback to Roman food, while still reflecting the Jewish heritage that influenced it. And this is one of the few books readily available that discusses it -- even Claudia Roden's monumental Book of Jewish Food -- IMHO possibly the greatest ethnic cookbook I own -- has very little to say about Italian Jewish food, though its coverage of Sephardic and Mizrachi cooking is otherwise excellent.

The recipes in here are snapshots of foods that aren't necessarily standardized -- the recipe for Riso di Sabato (Sabbath rice), for example, points out that some make it like a risotto, some don't. Three different versions of Passover charoset appear, from different parts of Italy, and even though the world-famous carciofi alla giudea show up there's a riot of other vegetable dishes, including many based on la zucca barucca, a pumpkin-like "blessed squash" that shows up quite frequently in this book.

Italian Jewish food is something very different from what the average cook might expect -- the combination leads to a fairly exotic yet very homey cuisine, and this book is one of the few I've seen that makes it accessible to American cooks. If you like seeking out interesting ethnic cuisines, there's a hole in your library if you don't have this one.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is fantastic GET IT, you'll be delighted with it!, December 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen (Hardcover)

I was born and raised in rome, I know a little about the Jewish people there. I know their beautiful Synagogue in the Ghetto, and I have eaten "Da Giggetto al Portico D'Ottavia" at least fifty times! It's fabulous, we used to go there for filetti di baccala' and puntarelle (a salad with an anchiov dressing. Ms. Goldstein has captured the "real" recipes. I was most impressed when I read "Carciofi alla Giudia", she is so right in describing what type of artichokes to use, only the Roman artichokes can be used in order to obtain the true recipe, she gives suggestions on how to use american artichokes but is not the same. Everyone should own this book, is informative, the recipes are incredibly great! Try the Roast chicken aith Orange, Lemon and Ginger; your guest will ask for the recipe, it is so fantastic. I recommend this book to all individuals that like good cooking, it is priceless, she did a wonderful job. thank you Ms. Goldstein!!