Voila! French Jewish Food Arrives!
Joan Nathan, the queen of Jewish American and Israeli cookbooks, takes to the old continent in her new book, Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France. Nathan returns to the country where she spent several years of her youth and wends her way through cities and small villages, tasting treasured family recipes and collecting stories hitherto untold. Nathan talks with Moment’s Eileen Lavine about the little-known culinary world of French Jews.
Did Jews influence French cooking?
Through their travels, Jewish explorers, merchants and peddlers brought salted and dried fish, grains and spices to France. During the Inquisition, many Jews fled Spain to Bayonne in southwestern France, bringing with them coffee beans and a tradition for making chocolate. At first, chocolate was a liquid remedy for ailments, but it soon became a luxury food, and...