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Title: Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen by Joyce Esersky Goldstein, Ellen Silverman ISBN: 0-8118-1969-8 Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Fantastic work at the crossroads of food and culture
Comment: Joyce Goldstein's cookbooks are a pleasure to read and to cook from. She has a wonderful sense of the way that culture and food interact and develop. In addition, she writes beautifully about Jews have effected and been effected by the cultures where they reside, adapting local cuisine to the Jewish palette and dietary rules.
The Jewish community in Italy dates back to ancient Rome, at least 2,300 years. Their cuisine is rich, flavorful, and undeniably Italian. Goldstein brings their tradition to life in this great cookbook. Moreover, her introduction and notes that go with the receipts are facinating.
While everything I have tried was wonderful, some things should be pointed out in particular. The pizza (not what you think) is great. Also, Goldstein teaches that the ubiquitous putenesca sauce is, in fact, of Jewish origin. The risotto and stews are also wonderful. As with her other books, Goldstein does not skimp on the desserts!
A testament to what a great book this is the fact I am getting hungry just writing about it!
Rating: 5
Summary: Is there a restaurant that serves this stuff somewhere?
Comment: Short form: vegetables + raisins and pine nuts is a good combination.
There is a certain image of Jewish food and a certain image of Italian food in this country that is widely understood. The food in this book really is neither -- it's a unique cuisine that in some ways is a throwback to Roman food, while still reflecting the Jewish heritage that influenced it. And this is one of the few books readily available that discusses it -- even Claudia Roden's monumental Book of Jewish Food -- IMHO possibly the greatest ethnic cookbook I own -- has very little to say about Italian Jewish food, though its coverage of Sephardic and Mizrachi cooking is otherwise excellent.
The recipes in here are snapshots of foods that aren't necessarily standardized -- the recipe for Riso di Sabato (Sabbath rice), for example, points out that some make it like a risotto, some don't. Three different versions of Passover charoset appear, from different parts of Italy, and even though the world-famous carciofi alla giudea show up there's a riot of other vegetable dishes, including many based on la zucca barucca, a pumpkin-like "blessed squash" that shows up quite frequently in this book.
Italian Jewish food is something very different from what the average cook might expect -- the combination leads to a fairly exotic yet very homey cuisine, and this book is one of the few I've seen that makes it accessible to American cooks. If you like seeking out interesting ethnic cuisines, there's a hole in your library if you don't have this one.
Rating: 5
Summary: unusual, mellow, do-able
Comment: Unusual, homey recipes made with obtainable ingredients. Good ground chicken (or turkey)dishes. Good on beans, artichoke, eggplant. Joyce Goldstein obviously had a free-er hand and was also able to indulge her flair for historical research in the preparation of this work. I admire this unusually talented chef who is at her best when she is, as is the case here, allowed to follow her own instincts rather than fit the mold of a series, such as the Williams-Sonoma books. Her Kitchen Conversations, in spite of the unfortunate photographs, is the best cookbook I have used this year.
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