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

by David M. Gitlitz

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1394198,563 (3.81)4
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.… (more)
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These recipes are derived from the interrogations conducted by the Spanish Inquisition in its efforts to root out Jews a who had not truly converted to Christianity. The main evidence was the preparation of meals on Friday afternoon for cold consumption on the Sabbath. This does provide us with cooking customs of this culture in Spain while hearing the voice of people desperate to have someone other than themselves tortured..
  LibrarianFu | May 11, 2024 |
This was a sad but excellent and well researched book on Converso food and Inquisition use of culture to find and prosecute crypto-Jews. ( )
  FourFreedoms | May 17, 2019 |
This was a sad but excellent and well researched book on Converso food and Inquisition use of culture to find and prosecute crypto-Jews. ( )
  ShiraDest | Mar 6, 2019 |
I was excited when I first heard about this book, but when I got a copy, i was disappointed.

First what is good: the recipes produce tasty dishes.

But they are not the recipes of Spain's Jews, secret or public. They were invented by the authors with a minimum of supporting evidence, or, much of the time, none at all. They are based for the most part on the testimony of people who turned in Conversos for being "secrect Jews". The mere mention of, oh, say, chick peas and honey, has led the authors to invent a recipe that includes these ingredients.

If you are truly interested in the history the food eaten by Spain's Jews, you will learn only a very limited amount from this book. If you want some nice Spainish-style recipes actually eaten by Jews, you'll probably do better skipping the sad tales of betrayal and torture and buying a modern Sephardic cookbook. ( )
2 vote lilinah | Sep 26, 2005 |
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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.

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