Talk of the Table | This Passover, Try Inquisition Soup

The case against María Días, prosecuted by the Spanish Inquisition, began on January 12, 1484. Her crimes? Secretly marrying in a Jewish ceremony, keeping the Sabbath, praying from the siddur and observing the holiday of Passover. A wax worker from the town of Palma (near Cordoba) in Andalusia, Días had fled and was not present at her trial in the court of the Inquisition in the city of Ciudad Real, where she had been accused of secretly practicing Jewish customs. The trial records, housed in the National Historical Archive of Spain in Madrid, detail her “crimes” and the dishes she allegedly prepared for two Passover seders: “She celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread which they begin by eating lettuce, celery and other green vegetables…sow thistles and vinegar, and another ceremony which they make with maror, which means bitter, and certain little cakes of unleavened bread.”

We are, of course, familiar today with lettuce and celery, but what is sow thistle? And what did the plant, a wild herb with yellow flower heads and a bitter taste, have to do with heresy?

The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478, and its first recorded sentence was issued three years later. The primary targets were Crypto-Jews, i.e. Jewish converts to Catholicism (also known as conversos, Marranos, Anusim or Meshumadim) whom the authorities suspected of secretly maintaining Jewish traditions.

One of the ways the Inquisition tried to expose Crypto-Jews was through their food—the dishes they prepared, the foods they avoided and food-related rituals. In fact, according to French-Spanish food historian Hélène Jawhara Piñer, nearly 60 percent of Inquisition trials used food as evidence of heresy. “Food is politics,” Piñer explains. “It is the case these days, and it was even more so before.”

Inquisition law, as issued in 1481, outlines specific signs that could identify a backsliding converso (Judaizer). If, for instance, suspects eat food that has been cooked overnight in the oven, it means they are celebrating Shabbat. They are also suspect if they eat meat during Lent; if they take neither meat nor drink on the Day of Atonement; if on the Feast of Tabernacles they use “green branches” or send fruit as gifts to friends; if they throw a piece of dough in the stove before baking; if they bless a cup of wine before meals and pass it around among the people at table; if they pronounce blessings while slaughtering poultry, cover the blood with earth, separate the veins from meat, soak the flesh in water before cooking, and cleanse it from blood; if they eat no pork, hare, rabbits or eels; and if they eat unleavened bread or bitter herbs on Passover.

The sow thistle, allegedly used by María Días at her Passover seder, was one such bitter herb. The Mishnah lists five herbs that qualify as maror (bitter herb): hazzeret, ulshin, tamcha, harhavina and maror (here referring to the specific herb, not a generic category). Maimonides, himself a native of Cordoba, identified harhavina as sow thistle.

While unfamiliar to most of us, sow thistle seems to have been an herb regularly used in Andalusia. A 13th-century anonymous cookbook from that region includes recipes for sow thistle syrup and jam. And 13th-century Andalusian botanist Ibn al-Baytar, in his Compendium on Simple Medicaments and Foods, noted that sow thistle was known in Andalusia as “Abraham’s thorn” and was also referred to as one of the “vegetables of the Jews.”

For her new cookbook, Matzah and Flour: Recipes from the History of the Sephardi Jews, food historian Piñer has created a sow thistle soup recipe based on María Días’s trial records. Her research draws from a variety of historical sources, including the writings of Maimonides concerning Jewish law and medical research, and Inquisition trial records that span the period from 1481 to the late 19th century in Spain and Mexico. “For me, as a food historian,” says Piñer, “Inquisition trials are the best source to understand the complexity and richness of the food practices of the Jews of Spain and the territories [in the New World] where Jews were settled.”

Paradoxically, while Jewish texts were banned during the Inquisition, this very prohibition list later served as an unwitting guide for conversos seeking to preserve their faith in secret.

Spanish prosecutors referred to Passover as Pascua de los Judîos (Passover of the Jews) or Pascua del Pan Cenceño (Passover of the Unleavened Bread). Over time, converso observance of the holiday adapted. Some kept it for only a few days, while others observed it for seven. Some fasted on the first day. And some, particularly in Mexico, used the Latin Vulgate Bible in place of a traditional Haggadah. But wine, matzah and bitter herbs were a common denominator and were frequently mentioned in the Inquisition records.

In the testimony of Mexican converso Diego Diaz Nieto in 1601, he mentions dipping the bitter herb in vinegar, just as the trial records of María Días state: “They set out a basket in which there are lettuce, celery, and others of the most bitter greens, and a piece of roast meat in memory of the [Passover] lamb, and a little dish with balls of [haroset]…And they dampen the lettuce and celery in vinegar and eat it.” An Inquisition record from 1624 in Cuenca, Ecuador, identifies Judaizers as those “who celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, beginning by eating lettuce, celery or other bitter herbs.”

These days, says Piñer, a very similar herb called tagarninas grows wild in Andalusia in springtime and is used by local cooks for Easter stews and soups. In Israel, sow thistle is called “maror of the garden,” and has been used by some Yemenite Jews as maror. Samaritans, of whom there are still communities in Israel, serve the herb with the Passover lamb sacrifice, following a verse from Exodus: “And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.”

But what of María Días? It turns out that it was her servant who denounced her. According to the trial record, this person reported seeing Días “keeping and celebrating no less than the Jews do.” Fernando de Trusillo, a former rabbi of the conversos in Palma, was also called to testify. According to Piñer, he told the court that when he had lived in Palma seven years earlier, María Días observed Shabbat and Jewish holidays just as he did.

María Días was found guilty of heresy by the Inquisition. The trial papers give no indication of how she was located, but we do know that on February 24, 1484, Días was burned at the stake.

ANDALUSIAN SOUP

From Matzah and Flour: Recipes from the History of the Sephardi Jews
by Hélène Jawhara Piñer

INGREDIENTS (SERVES 4)

FOR THE BROTH:
2        carrots, peeled, washed and cut into chunks
1        medium onion, peeled and sliced
2        stalks of celery, peeled, washed and cut into chunks
1        clove garlic, mashed
4       cups water
1        tbsp. salt

FOR THE SOUP:
4        cups vegetable broth
9        oz. cleaned and rinsed tagarninas, cut in 1/2-inch pieces (can substitute asparagus if needed)
5        small cloves of garlic, sliced
4        tsps. olive oil
1         bay leaf
2        tsps. salt
1         tsp. black pepper
3        strands saffron, crushed in a mortar with one ice cube
2        eggs, beaten
1         shallot, thinly sliced
4        unleavened breads or matzahs
1         tsp. smoked paprika (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

FOR THE BROTH:
1. In a pan, pour olive oil. Add the thin slices of garlic and bay leaf. Sauté over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, making sure not to burn the garlic.

2. Add the cut tagarninas (or asparagus), salt, pepper and saffron previously crushed in a mortar with one ice cube. Mix gently for about 2 minutes and add 4 cups of vegetable broth. Add the cooked vegetables as well. Cook covered over medium heat for approximately 15 minutes. Then, turn off the heat.

3. In a bowl, beat the eggs. Pour them into the soup and gently stir to cook them.

4. Prepare the bowls, and add finely chopped scallions. Then add five pieces of broken matzah, and pour the soup on top. Sprinkle with smoked paprika if desired. Serve immediately.

Opening picture: Courtesy of Hélène Jawhara Piñer

Explore More Passover Recipes in Moment’s Passover Guide

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Top image: Andalusian soup (Credit: Matzah and Flour: Recipes from the History of the Sephardi Jews by Hélène Jawhara Piñer).