SC - Book Review
Aldyth at aol.com
Aldyth at aol.com
Fri Feb 4 17:56:20 PST 2000
Greetings the list. This appeared to day on our Outlands list, posted by
Jarl Gunwaldt. I thought it might be interesting reading for us.
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Duke Finvarr thought this would be of interest to the SCA lists.
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David M. Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson. A Drizzle of
Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. 352. $29.95.
ISBN 0312198604.
Reviewed by Seth Ward
University of Denver
sward at du.edu
The Spanish Inquisition represents a nearly unparalleled
resource for details about daily lives in Spain and its
overseas possessions for several centuries following its
institution in 1480; in the annals of pre-modern history,
perhaps only the Cairo Geniza is a richer source. The
Inquisitors took great interest in a myriad of details,
recording oral testimony at great length. The Inquisition was,
of course, a quest for information about practices not
consonant with Catholicism, often with disastrous results for
its victims; it was not a neutral observer and interested
primarily in testimony relevant to what it believed to be its
sacred office.
The Inquisition was painstakingly interested in everyday
practices that provided evidence of Judaizing. Many of these
concerned food or festive meals: what food was eaten, how it
was prepared, when eaten, in what context. The Inquisitors did
not generally inquire about precise measurements and
comprehensive cooking directions. But the references to
ingredients and preparation allow for a tentative
reconstruction of the recipes.
This beautiful book presents both the stories from the
Inquisition and the reconstructed recipes, adapted somewhat to
the needs of the modern kitchen. Each recipe is preceded by an
account of the testimony from which it is taken, with the
history of the people mentioned in the testimony, to the extent
that it is known. The authors include, as far as possible, the
end of the story as well. Despite the very real horrors of
torture and the autos-da-fe, the authors maintain that we know
only about half of the dispositions of the individuals whose
food-preparations are recorded in the cookbook; of those which
are known, some will be surprised that many escaped an untimely
end.
The authors have reconstructed the recipes on the basis of
solid research. They consulted dictionaries and treatises on
agriculture and herbal medicine available in late medieval and
early modern Iberia. They show a depth of familiarity with
classical and medieval Arabic and European sources, including
several Spanish cookbooks published in the first century of
printing.
The Inquisition sought evidence of Judaizing, and what it
sought it frequently enough found. All the individuals were
living openly as Christians, and in some cases their families
had been Christian for generations. Some may have consciously
attempted to preserve Jewish religious practices; others merely
maintained social ties with former coreligionists, and yet
others were faithful Catholics. Clearly, for many, these
practices did not reflect Kashrut--Jewish dietary law--or
religious practice, but the traditional training of their
mothers and grandmothers (or, for servants, of their
mistresses). Nor is it comprehensive, as we know only about
the elements the Inquisition was looking for. Thus we know
little about Hanukkah practices (270); perhaps these vanished
quickly after conversion to Christianity or did not exist; in
any case, even if they did, they did not show up on the
Inquisition's radar.
The Inquisition was interested in Friday practices such as
lighting candles and the preparation of hamin or
adafina, meals prepared on Friday and "hidden away" to
be slow-cooked for the Sabbath. Not only the Sabbath, but
food-related items for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and
Passover all show up in Inquisition's records.
Washing hands before eating, and Kosher-style slaughter,
soaking and draining meat in the Jewish way, removing fat and
the sciatic vein all figure in Inquisitorial records. Browning
meat in olive oil does not seem remarkable at first glance, but
was often noted with suspicion in these records, as the typical
Iberian practice seems to have been to use lard instead. Yet
some of the testimony about Judaizing involved preparation of
milk and meat together or even of pork, items proscribed by
traditional Jewish practice.
Inquisition records testify to kitchen practices, relations
between the family and the servants, and the wealth of products
available to the Spanish kitchen. Beef was food for the poor
(146-7), chicken and veal for the rich. Each recipe is
preceded by an account of the inquisition testimony and the
background, as far as it can be known, including whether or not
the people involved were eventually burned at the stake. These
stories, most of which are every-day occurences recounted under
very trying circumstances, bring middle class Iberian society
to light. Although they might be somewhat repetitive to those
interested in the book for its recipes, to this reviewer, these
accounts are the highlight of the volume, together with the
documentation for late-medieval cookery and herbaries.
The recipes in this book strike a middle ground between
contemporary and Iberian practices. The authors have made
allowances for a modern kitchen, including microwave. Although
they refer to period Spanish sensibilities about seasonings,
they claim to hav e toned down the heavy dose of spices that
seems to have been typical of this cuisine. Nevertheless, the
recipes will not always be easy for the modern cook, and rely
on ingredients that may not always be easy to obtain outside of
specialty grocers. This reviewer, impressed by the cookbook's
historical research and presentation, is fond of cooking--but
not of recipes. Presented with a gift of the cookbook, the
reviewer's mother--who does use cookbooks--was not immediately
impressed with the viability of the recipes in her kitchen.
Although introductory material makes it clear how to "re-adjust
back" to the historic measurements, some purists, too, may be
disappointed that these allowances have been made, and other
cooks might want more readily accessible products or an
internet reference for where some of the more exotic ones can
be purchased.
Since the mid-1980s, there has been growth in interest in
crypto-Judaism and Sephardic Jewry, and recent years have seen
many important publications of Inquisition material. It goes
without saying that the same period has witnessed an explosion
in Women's studies. This cookbook is an important contribution
to these fields. Reflecting solid scholarship, it will also
provide dedicated cooks with an opportunity to counterbalance
somewhat the popularity of reconstructing medieval jousting and
war, and allow us to re-create a reasonably realistic
approximation of the culinary experiences of the subjects of
our research.
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