The World Of Jewish Cooking: More Than 400 Delectable Recipes from Jewish Communities [Hardcover]

Gil Marks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 1996

From a rabbi who is also a gourmet chef and a noted authority on Jewish food history and lore comes a comprehensive and beautiful new guide to the World of Jewish Cooking.

To most Americans, Jewish cooking evokes images of Eastern European fare such as chicken soup with matza balls. But scattered across the globe, in cultural communities of varying sizes and antiquity, there are many distinctive, delicious, and authentic Jewish cuisines to be savored.

Gil Marks serves up a collection of kosher recipes and histories of Jews throughout the world. He delights and enlightens readers with traditional recipes from Italian, Yemenite, Ethiopian, Indian, Romanian, Hungarian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Moroccan, German, Alsatian, and Middle Eastern Jewry; culinary conversations with contemporary members of these ancient and medieval communities; and fascinating commentary on Jewish food and Jewish history.

The World of Jewish Cooking offers an astonishing array of delicacies, including:

Pastilla (Moroccan "Pigeon" Pie) Esfongos (Sephardic Spinach Nests) Injera (Ethiopian Pancake Bread) Ab-Gush (Persian Lamb Shank Soup) Lubiya M'sallat (Syrian Black-Eyed Peas and Veal) Samak (Yemenite Spicy Poached Fish) Kufteh Sabzi (Persian Green Meatballs) Badam Loozena (Calcutta Almond Diamonds)

as well as more familiar traditional Jewish dishes, such as Goldena Yoiche (Ashkenazic Chicken Soup), rugelach, kugel, chopped liver, and gefilte fish.

The World of Jewish Cooking is destined to become the cornerstone of every Jewish kitchen.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Rabbi Marks explains how the Jews, spreading to all corners of the world beginning with the Diaspora, adapted their recipes to local ingredients and adopted the local fare, often giving it new twists. A historian and a chef, he provides a clear explanation of what makes a dish Jewish and why so many Americans associate Jewish cooking with Eastern European food. You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy the more than 500 recipes Marks includes. A wealth of historical and culinary information, as well as photos and drawings, accompany the recipes.

From Publishers Weekly

Developed by Jews dispersed around the globe, Jewish cuisines have been shaped by both adopted cultures and by the laws of kosher. This excellent overview contains such diverse recipes as those for the Ashkenazic classic Roast Chicken and Ethiopian Chicken Stew with hard-boiled eggs. There are kugels galore (Alsatian Pear and Prune Kugel; Ashkenazic Potato Pudding; Indian Rice Pudding), but also Yemenite Spicy Poached Fish and Cochin Fish Soup from the Jews of the Malabar Coast. Marks (a rabbi and former editor of Kosher Gourmet magazine) provides tasty nuggets of intriguing information as well. It is no surprise to find a treatise on bagels (which Marks insists were not named after a Polish prince's stirrups as is often claimed) in a Jewish cookbook, but who knew that a Jewish fish seller first transformed Sephardic Pan-Fried Fish Fillets into fish and chips, or that a Minneapolis Hadassah chapter was behind the introduction of the bundt pan to the U.S.? Plentiful archival photographs and illustrations (showing everything from a Jewish family in Burma in 1938 to a Jewish poultry inspector in 19th-century France) add to the encyclopedic feel of this sweeping effort.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 6, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684824914
• ISBN-13: 978-0684824918
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #645,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb book on Jewish food - history, symbolism and recipes, September 5, 2001

By 

Lynnsey Skliros (Johannesburg, South Africa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The WORLD OF JEWISH COOKING: More Than 500 Traditional Recipes from Alsace to Yemen (Paperback)

If you're looking for a glossy coffee-table book with lots of stylish photographs, this is not for you. That said, it is an attractive book, well laid-out, printed in two colours and illustrated with old engravings and photographs. The illustrations are of people and markets rather than the dishes themselves, which underscore the book's focus on the origins of the dishes and the people who made them.

Marks does a great job of explaining why Jewish food is so diverse and how the Jews adapted their recipes to local ingredients, and also adapted the local recipes to the laws of kashrut. He includes recipes from India, Poland and Morocco, and everywhere in between. For many recipes he includes an anecdote or a little bit of history, which bring the dishes to life.

One of the things this book brought home to me was how important food is in Judaism: everything has a symbolic meaning and you don't eat things just because they taste good, but also because they represent something. At Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, apples dipped in honey represent hopes for a sweet coming year, while the challah (bread) is shaped into a round loaf (instead of being braided as usual) to symbolise the cyclical nature of time. Matzo is eaten at Pesach because when the Jews fled Egypt, they did not have time for their bread dough to rise. Thus at every festival meal the participants are reminded of the meanings of the festival and why it is celebrated.

The recipes themselves are clearly laid out and look easy to follow, although I haven't tried any of them yet. I didn't notice any impossible-to-find ingredients and the techniques are mostly within the average cook's capabilities.

The only thing missing in this book (and the reason it got 4 instead of 5 stars) is a more comprehensive section on each festival with a description, which foods are traditionally served, and some sample menus. As it is, if you want to create a Rosh Hashana meal you have to look up the individual recipes in the index. Otherwise a lovely book and well worth the money!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The recipes work., February 5, 2002

By 

Abby Breitstein "emese" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The WORLD OF JEWISH COOKING: More Than 500 Traditional Recipes from Alsace to Yemen (Paperback)

This is one of those rare and wonderful cookbooks in which everything you make turns out the way you hoped it would. I've made many, if not most, of the recipes in this book, with no disasters, and without my usual fiddlings and substitutions--the recipes are great the way they are. Some of them are the basic Jewish fare--honey cake and potato kugel--and some of them are more exotic Sephardi recipes. They're all delicious. It's also a good read, but primarily I like it because I can pull it out for every Shabbos and find things to make that I know will come out.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful cookbook and cultural lesson!, January 26, 2003

By 

Y. Garr "yjgarr" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The World Of Jewish Cooking: More Than 400 Delectable Recipes from Jewish Communities (Hardcover)

This is absolutely my favorite cookbook. The recipes are simple and delicious and the variations that are included offer even more ways to prepare the same dish. Everything that I have tried from this cookbook has turned out so good and have resulted in some of our favorite dishes.
Rabbi Marks also includes information about spices and vegetables and Jewish culture making the cookbook a fascinating read as well (I actually read the whole cookbook before I even tried any of the recipes!).
It is well worth the money!