SC - Jewish food in period

[Philip & Susan Troy]

RuddR at aol.com wrote:
> 
> David Friedman writes
> 
> << I read a bunch of volumes of _Early Period_ some time back. I enjoyed the
>  publication, but my impression was that their food articles were rarely if
>  ever based on period recipes. So my guess would be that they took period or
>  biblical references to food and found modern ethnic recipes to fit.
>   >>
> 
> This intrigues me.  My wife and I talked about the idea of having a medieval
> sedar this year, but apart from modern ethnic recipes that had a medieval
> "feel" about them, couldn't come up with anything authentically period on
> short notice.  We decided to hold off on the idea for a while.
> 
> I suppose one could select medieval receipts that could be made using kosher
> ingredients, but does anyone have any leads on authentic period Jewish
> cookery?
> 
> Rudd Rayfield

Okay, after a long and mostly fruitless search, I'll tell you what I
can, which is simply this: you want to find an article that appeared in
the New York Times on April 16th, 1997, entitled "Jewish Recipes of the
Spanish Inquisition", by Andree Brooks. It concerns the everyday and
holiday eating habits of Spain's "secret" Jews, people who professed
Catholicism in public but who continued to practice Judaism in private.
This would have taken place in the early 16th century, I suppose, and
the documentation for this includes trial and testimony transcripts from
people like household servants. These transcripts include descriptions
of matzoh making, as well as a process for making vermillioned eggs, and
a few others. The article includes worked-out recipes for the matzoh and
the eggs, as well, as fairly detailed descriptions of some other foods.

_SOMEWHERE_ I have a printout of this article, but it's kind of long to
type in all at once, and it seems to have been removed from the NYT
archives, which only go back a year on the Web. You should be able to
find it in the library, though.

Adamantius 

______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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