The twelve articles in Global Jewish Foodways: A History cut across time, space, and cultural identity to explore the many aspects of so-called Jewish food. Two notions are essential to the understanding of Jewish food, which as a category shares a certain set of similarities while being extremely diverse. First, the dietary laws as set down in the Torah, in Leviticus specifically, dictate what animal products can be eaten, how some can or cannot be combined, and how the animals are to be butchered. Second, the dispersal of Jews to most parts of the world speaks to the repertoire of distinct foods that grew out of the adaptation of local commodities and cooking techniques in order to incorporate the aforementioned set of rules.
Framing this collection is an introduction that provides a sequential synopsis of literature on Jewish food traditions; from Claude Levi-Strauss and Mary Douglas to Marvin Harris, the interdisciplinary nature of this field of study is amply illustrated. The editors present the concept that these are traditions that have existed over time. Jewish foodways crisscross the map to all places where Jews have lived. Thus, any study of Jewish food traditions is implicitly made from the perspective of migration and history. The editors also recognize the general lack of scholarship on some communities, such as Ethiopian Jews.
The editors of Global Jewish Foodways have organized twelve insightful articles into four sections. The first three articles include treatments of local adaptations in renaissance Italy, difficult food choices in nineteenth century America, and developments in Egypt and Iraq. Identity is one of the central themes in the second section. Authors address Middle Eastern Jewish foods in Israel, Jewish foods in Soviet Russia, and those of Sephardic Jews transplanted in France. Aspects relating to the laws of kosher in the interwar years in Eastern Europe and distinctive food traditions brought by Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants to Argentina are addressed in the third section. Authors of the final grouping examine identity from the perspective of memory of food in the diaspora. Articles deal with the effect of exile on food traditions of German Jews, an early twentieth-century Jewish cookbook and its influence on more than cooking, and adaptive food traditions in the American South. The authors draw from archives and other historic sources as well as memoirs, novels, and cookbooks for their rich texts.
The theme of intercultural interactions runs through many of the articles in the book. In some instances the interactions are interethnic between Jew and non-Jew, as to be expected, as in Flora Cassen’s article about a Jewish family’s culinary history in Renaissance Italy. Yael Raviv’s piece about food and art can actually be read in terms of intersections between Jewish and Palestinian identity. Her article stands out as a historical consideration of the nationalization of food by the Israelis. Raviv also shows how contested identity is effectively expressed in visual arts referencing food by both Israel and Palestine artists. Other interactions represented are between Jews who originated in different countries; Ari Ariel’s piece addresses the genesis of Israeli cuisine out of the food traditions carried to the region from elsewhere. Adriana Brodsky explores the interactions between Sephardic and Askenazi Jews in Argentina; she focuses on a gefilte fish, a food considered to be quintessentially Jewish by the latter. Interestingly, gefilte fish’s role as a signifier of Jewish identity figures large and contentiously in many twentieth-century American Jewish immigrant narratives.
Diversity within the restrictions, and how the latter have been manipulated or negotiated with to meet specific needs, is another topic found throughout the texts. Hasia R. Diner’s piece about Jewish peddlers in the United States explores how they managed to find suitable food to eat while on the road. The article about Jewish foods in Soviet Russia by Gennady Estraikh also addresses difficulties in obtaining kosher ingredients and food, as does Rakefet Zalashik’s piece on food shortages in Eastern Europe in the interwar years.
The authors of the articles assembled in Global Jewish Foodways: A History illustrate how Jewish food, identity, and history are fundamentally intertwined. They bring different approaches to distinct aspects of this rich and long-lived heritage. As the field of food studies continues to expand, this book will become essential reading. Its diverse chapters show the interdisciplinary nature involved in this research. This book is recommended for use in Jewish studies, Jewish folklore studies, and Jewish history courses, as well as in ethnic studies more generally.
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[Review length: 741 words • Review posted on February 18, 2021]