A Drizzle of Honey : The Life and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews

When Iberian Jews were converted to Catholicism under duress during the Inquisition, many struggled to retain their Jewish identity in private while projecting Christian conformity in the public sphere. To root out these heretics, the courts of the Inquisition published checklists of koshering practices and "grilled" the servants, neighbors, and even the children of those suspected of practicing their religion at home. From these testimonies and other primary sources, Gitlitz & Davidson have drawn a fascinating, award-winning picture of this precarious sense of Jewish identity and have re-created these recipes, which combine Christian & Islamic traditions in cooking lamb, beef, fish, eggplant, chickpeas, and greens and use seasonings such as saffron, mace, ginger, and cinnamon. The recipes, and the accompanying stories of the people who created them, promise to delight the adventurous palate and give insights into the foundations of modern Sephardic cuisine. Forced to convert to Catholicism during the Inquisition, many Jews in Spain kept alive their culture and identity in secret. Their food traditions, which combined the Christian and Islamic traditions in cooking meats, have been re-created in these recipes, which are mingled with stories about the people who created them A study of the culinary culture of Spanish converso Jews offers a recreation of Sephardic recipes that blend Christian and Islamic traditions, along with commentary on this unique culture In re-creating these recipes from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeen centuries, we have used standard American measurements, utensils, and cooking techniques. David M. Gitlitz & Linda Kay Davidson. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 319-324) And Index.