The Sephardic Kitchen: The Healthy Food and Rich Culture of the Mediterranean Jews (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Sephardim were Jews who settled in medieval Spain during the Diaspora. Expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s by the Christians, most Sephardic Jews migrated elsewhere around the Mediterranean, taking with them a cuisine richly influenced by the sensual cooking of their former Muslim rulers. Rabbi Sternberg records the history of Sephardic cooking and presents food you can't wait to prepare. Dishes like Ajada, a garlic spread, and a spinach and yogurt salad seasoned with dill are typical of the sunny, mostly simple-to-prepare food in this book. Sternberg's writing is flat but the richness of information and the vivid descriptions of each dish, including their Ladino names, hold your attention. Brief folk tales at the end of each chapter are enchanting. Sternberg's recipes are easy to follow, even if you've never made food like this.

From Publishers Weekly

Sternberg (Yiddish Cuisine) mines the rich vein of Sephardic cooking that is often ignored in the U.S. If the tone is occasionally more akin to a textbook than a cookbook, Sternberg is thorough and informative. In addition to simple, refreshing recipes for such dishes as Turkish-Style Bean Dip, Baked Beet Salad and Baked Fish With Bitter Lettuces, he provides one for the complex and decorative Bread of the Seven Heavens with much of the dough shaped into religious symbols like a fish and a hand. The many versions of hamin?a stew baked overnight similar to the Ashkenazic cholent?are explored in depth, as is the wide variety of Sephardic pies and savory pastries, including Portuguese Impanadas and Pittas, large savory pies from Greece. Sternberg also includes recitation of the rules of kashrut, several food-related folk tales and ideas for holiday meals as specific as a menu for a Salonika-Style Rosh Hashono Dinner and tips on what to serve after a funeral.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks; 1st edition (August 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060176911
• ISBN-13: 978-0060176914
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,153,651 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Oh My God -it's my Grandma's Food!!!", January 23, 1999

By A Customer

"I was so delighted to actually see my grandmothers favorite recipes in this book -in her very own dialect!! There were 'Yaprakas', and 'Biscochos' - as she called them. And the authors descriptive narrations of the history of the food -was as if I could see my family from places long ago. When he said you never walked in a sephardic's house without being offered a buffet of food any present day caterer would envy, I had to laugh out loud! That was my family!

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New recipes!, February 1, 2004

By	"jc2weho" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Great Cookbook, with lots of extras!