Regular marked price: $19.95Discount Price: $14.96
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN num: 9780811850131
ISBN number: 0811850137
Label: Chronicle Books
Manufacturer: Chronicle Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 208
Printing Date: July 07, 2005
Publishing house: Chronicle Books
Sale Popularity Level: 687872
Studio: Chronicle Books
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Product Description:
Now available in paperback, Joyce Goldstein's beloved cookbook offers a fascinating perspective on the Italian food we all know and love. Tracing the long-forgotten Jewish influences and focusing new light on the intertwining of two time-honored cooking traditions, the recipes in Cucina Ebraica are familiar and yet entirely fresh, a robust and delicious taste of Italy s regional cuisine. From the enticingly crunchy fried vegetables of fritto misto to the savory meat-filled buricche pastries to tonno fresco con piselli (Fresh Tuna with Peas), each dish is an invitation to the unexpected delights in both Italian and Jewish cuisine.
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Jews have lived in Italy since Roman times, always part of the cultural landscape, always living in isolation of one kind or another. The word we know as ghetto comes to us from 16th-century Venice. Within the world of Jews in Italy, there are several smaller worlds: those of the native Italian Jews, of the Sephardim driven out of Spain, and of the Ashkenazim moving down from Germany and Eastern Europe. Take all those food traditions and dietary laws, squeeze them in one overarching food sensibility, and you have a very unusual way to view culture and history. Joyce Goldstein, in Cucina Ebraica, demonstrates that culture and history are edible, if not downright delicious.
Take Livornese Couscous with Meatballs, White Beans, and Greens. Couscous came to Livorno with North African Jews in the 1270s. It was a Friday-night meal, and the leftovers were served cold the subsequent day on the Sabbath. Goldstein gives the very first honest recipe for Carciofi alla Giudia (crispy fried artichokes in the Roman Jewish style) yet printed. Not all artichokes are alike, she demonstrates, and then shows you a way around the problems no one else ever manages to address to successfully cook this classic.
As she has proved in The Mediterranean Kitchen and Kitchen Conversations, Joyce Goldstein knows how to bring great food to the home kitchen. Her research is impeccable, her technique straightforward. Cucina Ebraica, this wonderful way of looking at an Italian cuisine that must answer to so many other influences, is an obvious project of love and devotion. Not to be missed. --Schuyler Ingle
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Rated by buyers 
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by Judy Bart Kancigor, author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family
from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
September 30, 2005
While Crostini di Spuma di Tonno, Zuppa di Pesce Passato, Dolce di Tagliatelle might not sound like Jewish food, Italian Jews have long enjoyed these dishes.
Joyce Goldstein made her very first trip to Italy in 1957 and instantly became what she calls a "fanatic Italophile." The former chef-owner of San Francisco's Square One and daughter of Russian immigrants, Goldstein threw herself into Italian art, architecture, language, culture and food.
Out of her travels and study came "Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen" (Chronicle Books, $19.95). Newly released in paperback, the book is a beautifully photographed homage to a cuisine that dates back to Roman times.
It's not exactly the very first place you'd think to look for a Rosh Hashanah menu. But the Jews of Italy can trace their roots to the second century B.C.E., making it one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, Goldstein said.
As in every corner of the Diaspora, Jewish cooks throughout the ages have used their creativity to wed regional cuisine to the laws of kashrut. Sometimes a clue lies in what is missing -- no besciamella (cream) sauce or cheese on meat, for instance. The names of recipes may contain a tell-tale ending, "alla Guidia" or "alla Mosaica," denoting "Jewish style," "per Sabato" for Sabbath dishes or "per Pesach."
"These are very regional Italian recipes," Goldstein said, "and often you can tell just by looking at them where the Jews lived. Sometimes what makes these recipes Jewish is the name, like Scaloppini di Tacchino Rebecca or Minestra di Esau, but a lot of times you can't tell, unless you see margarine or oil where they might have used butter."
While the book is thoroughly researched, Goldstein never sacrifices flavor for authenticity. Where she finds a recipe bland, she adjusts the seasoning. "Our palates yesterday are not used to things simple and good; they're a little more stimulated. We're used to eating all kinds of food here, so the ante is up and we want a little bit more flavor."
She also admits to adjusting cooking times, as many of the oldest recipes were overcooked by today's standards. "These are people who lived without ovens. They brought things to the baker to be cooked and picked up later, and some things were cooked a very long time. Vegetables -- in those days you never got a crunch in your life," she said.
Trained and educated as an artist, in Goldstein's capable hands food and art blend. "When you cook you are organizing flavors and appearance, colors, smells, tastes. To me that's like organizing a canvas when you're painting, like the composition, choice of textures and colors. With art you don't have smell and taste, so maybe food has an advantage, although art lasts and food gets eaten up. But both make use of creative energy."
She is equally passionate about using locally grown ingredients. "The raw materials of the region are fabulous: Italian eggs with blue yolks; flavorful, fresh chickens; vegetables that are picked one minute and served the next. Italians are totally driven by the quality of their ingredients; whereas if I go to the supermarket, when was it picked? When was it put out? When did I cook it? Three days maybe have lapsed, and it's not as flavorful."
Many of the ingredients traditionally used in Italian cuisine -- tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, corn, pumpkin -- were New World foods brought by the explorers to Spain and Portugal, where Jews, relegated to making their livelihood in trade and import, introduced them to the community at large. They were then transplanted to Italy by Sephardim who found refuge there during the Inquisition.
For Rosh Hashanah, try Stufadin di Zuca Zala (Braised Meat with Butternut Squash), reminiscent of Ashkenazic tzimmes. And no wonder. Many Ashkenazim immigrated to the Veneto, where this Venetian stew became popular. Here squash and Marsala add a touch of sweetness, bringing a wish for a sweet new year to your Rosh Hashanah table.
Traditionally for the holiday new fruits are served, and it is customary in Italy to poach quinces both for Rosh Hashanah and to break the fast for Yom Kippur. With an infusion of cloves and cinnamon, Mele Cotogne in Giulebbe (Quince in Syrup) brings a sweet, aromatic finale to your holiday feast.
Stufadin di Zuca Zala
(Braised Meat With Butternut Squash)
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 pounds cubed veal for stew
Salt to taste
1 cup Marsala or other sweet wine
1 butternut squash, about ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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Ordered, received, and as a well-travelled person who lives on the border with Italy - yes, worth every penny. Excellent recipes, easy to use.. Recommended
Rated by buyers -
I am Jewish and my husband is Italian, so this seemed like the perfect book for us. It is well organized with appealing photographs and clear, understandable recipes with interesting explanations of the history of each dish, as well as variations and substitions. We have tried many of the recipes and have never been disappointed. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys both cooking and the history of ethnic cultures.
Rated by buyers 
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From the other reviews, I had hoped for more historical accuracy. All the recipes seemed to be modernized rather than left in their historical form. Not as historically useful as I'd hoped. As a cookbook, it should be OK, but if your trying to recreate historical flavors, forget it. Tomatos weren't around in Roman times, nor were peppers.
Rated by buyers -
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.
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