Authentic Sephardic Jewish Matzah & Flour Recipes - Traditional Passover Dishes & Holiday Baking for Family Gatherings

A food historian specializing in medieval Spain, Hélène Jawhara Piñer offers here more than 120 recipes adapted from period sources, both in Spain and from the communities formed by Jews who fled to Italy, Greece, Mexico, Morocco, and elsewhere following their expulsion.

Piñer’s headnotes endeavour to provide as much cultural context as possible for the recipes, and she cites sources as varied as the Torah, records of the Inquisition, the scholar Maimonades and other works on Jewish law, and the work of Cervantes.

The recipes themselves display adaptation and endurance: matzah made from masa harina in Mexico; the flour soup called harira, used for breaking the fast of Yom Kippur, which evolved to incorporate tomatoes from the New World; even the possible spread of braided challah from Spain to Italy and thence to Eastern Europe where it was embraced by Ashkenazi Jews.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout