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

A Drizzle of Honey: The Life and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews
By David M. Gitlitz, Dr. Linda Kay Davidson

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Product Description

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.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #612154 in Books
  • Published on: 2000-09-25
  • Original language: English
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 352 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A husband-and-wife team of University of Rhode Island professors presents a cookbook of medieval recipes that is, more significantly, a document of religious persecution during the Spanish Inquisition. Sixteen pages of endnotes and a six-page bibliography attest to its authority. Thousands of Iberian Jews were forced to convert to Christianity in the late 15th century, and while many assimilated, others clung to earlier customs?including dietary edicts. Gitlitz and Davidson report trial testimonies in which crypto-Jews?those who secretly struggled to maintain their Jewish identity and customs?were betrayed by what they ate, what they wouldn't eat and how their food was prepared. Recipes reconstructed for today's kitchens include dishes such as Isabel Gonzalez's Eggplant and Onion Stew and Blanca Ramierez's Meatball Stew. Another revealing dish is Radishes and Stuffed Crop, skin from chicken necks stuffed with radishes and herbs. Many meals reflect a fondness for the sweetness of honey and the savory blend of herbs and spices. They range from Mayor Gonzalez's Cold White Lamb Casserole, made with rose water, cinnamon and almond milk, to five different matzas, including one with mashed chestnuts. Gitlitz and Davidson offer an erudite look into both culinary and Jewish history.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The "secret Jews" are the Iberian Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism under the Spanish Inquisition but still maintained Jewish religious practices in the privacy of their homes. Since this was strictly forbidden, the courts devoted a lot of time to ferreting out the "secret Jews," using the testimony of neighbors, servants, and family members. The authors, specialists in Spanish history and culture, have written a meticulously researched scholarly work focusing on this aspect of the Inquisition, using a variety of primary sources but relying mostly on the testimony of those questioned and often sentenced to imprisonment or worse. From these sources, they have re-created dozens of medieval recipes. While their efforts to discover and preserve this aspect of Jewish heritage are laudable, perhaps the idea of a cookbook was misguided. A recipe headnote that concludes "Maria went to the stake on November 20, 1486" is unlikely to make many readers feel like making Maria Sanchez's Greens. For religious/cultural history collections and some specialized cookery collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

David Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson are professors at the University of Rhode Island. Each has written several books on Spanish culture, including Gitlitz's Secrecy and Deceit, an alternate selection of the History Book Club and winner of the 1996 National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Studies and the 1997 Lucy B. Dawidowicz Prize for History. They are married and this is the first book they have written together. Their newest book is The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago, now available from St. Martin's Press.