[Sca-cooks] Redacting another Jewish dish (fwd)

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

>The authors' translation doesn't include the beginning phrase, "On FRIDAYS... her mistress used to make..."  [Emphasis added]  I think the significant thing is that she was making a certain dish regularly on Fridays.  This would be an indication to the Inquisitors that the woman might have been secretly observing the Jewish Sabbath.  I don't think the absense of bacon fat is an issue here, since Christians would be abstaining from meat on Fridays.
>

You are probably right, though using olive oil rather than butter might 
also have played a part?  However, the book also specifies "The 
Inquisition's informants keyed on the principal ingredient of the main 
dish, it's relation to the Jewish or Christian calender of ritual, and a 
few foods - chard, chickpeas, eggplant - that old-Christians associated 
with Semitic cuisine."  So, it may have been the use of chard in that 
particular season, combined with it's particular use on Fridays, that 
drew attention.  I wonder what record there is of foods associated with 
seasonal rituals for Jews at that time?  Certainly, there are enough 
seasonal foods these days - charoset, latkes, etc.

-Magdalena vander Brugghe

-- 
Tara Sersen Boroson

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself. - Galileo Galilei