“Kon vino i esperansa todo se alkansa”: Cuisine and Cultural Memory in the Sephardic Jewish Diaspora

Sara Gardner Summer Scholars 2015

Abstract Starting questions Some conclusions, remaining questions The Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, expelled the • What did Sephardic cuisine and food culture look like before the diaspora? • The most interesting and complex displays of cultural Sephardic Jews from Spain in 1492. Though there no longer • What were the factors that most aided or hindered the assimilation of the integration are to be found where there are also parallel remains any tangible trace of their existence, Sephardic Jewry Sephardic Jews in these five locations? non-Sephardic Jewish populations with whom the once formed an integral population on the Iberian Peninsula. • How was this assimilation expressed through food? Sephardic exiles interacted. After they left Spain and resettled in various locations, such as • What was the Sephardic aspect of the food in these five locations? • Often in the places where Sephardim were legally allowed modern-day nations including Morocco, Turkey, Greece, the • How did Sephardic food culture change over time in these locations and or welcomed, there was the greatest culinary evidence of Netherlands, and Curaçao, they used food as a tool of culxtural how does that reflect their relationship to the Sephardim’s contemporary assimilation. integration and religious preservation as well as a way to access society? • Physical space and organization plays an important role in the emotional ties to their distant homeland. Their cuisine was • Was there a location that allowed for a particularly harmonious union of this analysis – physical proximity, being neighbors or the medium through which they maintained their heritage, Sephardic and non-Sephardic culinary heritage and cultural identity? within the same neighborhood especially, engendered identity, and cultural memory even as they explored and • How does food act as a signifier of cultural identity? greater social interaction among Sephardic and non- integrated new culinary elements gained from their entry into • How is this mostly unknown history applicable to food ritual and culture Sephardic populations, aiding their assimilation, which foreign communities. In my project “Kon vino i esperansa todo today? became reflected in their food choices. se alkansa: Cuisine and Cultural Memory in the Sephardic • Important role of Sephardim in cultivating, trading, and popularizing many foods we still eat today, ie artichokes, Jewish Diaspora,” I will explore the multivalent processes of Methodology eggplants, citrus. migration, assimilation, and cultural retention in the Sephardic Use sources from a variety of genres – including historical texts, agricultural • Sephardic cuisine closely resembles that which we call the Jewish diaspora using food as my focus. By conducting and economic records, artistic representation, poetry and literature, and Mediterranean Diet; in many ways, Sephardim became so literature-based research about the Sephardic dispersion and cookbooks – to recreate Sephardic culinary identity as it changed throughout assimilated that it is hard to differentiate between the two. by recreating recipes from five distinct geographic five locations of the diaspora and analyze how their food reflected their • Sephardic cuisine often equally or more greatly influenced destinations, I hope to elucidate how Sephardic cuisine complex relationships with their new locations of settlement. changed in each location and what these transformations can the culinary culture of the places they settled post- reveal about the greater diaspora. Further, using the example expulsion. of Sephardic Jewry and its cuisine, I intend to illustrate the • Even when a given population had tenuous relationships critical role food plays in shaping and preserving communal with the Sephardic Jews – be they Muslims, Christians, or connection and cultural identity. other Jews – often they shared with, helped to shape, and were influenced by Sephardic food culture. • Lingering connection to Spain and Spanish identity: what did pre-expulsion Sephardic cuisine and cultural heritage A (Very) Select Bibliography look like? Koén-Sarano, Matilda, and Liora Kelman. Le-Vashel Be-Ṭaʻm Ladino. • How can we begin to bring this understanding to shift our Yerushaláyim: Sh. Zaḳ, 2010. Print. Mann, Vivian B, Thomas F Glick, and Jerrilynn Denise Dodds. Convivencia. Pre-Expulsion Sephardic Life in Spain modern perception of Jewish history, which is so often rd New York: G. Braziller in association with the Jewish Museum, 1992. • Historical connection to the Iberian Peninsula – arrived 3 century or Ashkenazi-centric (Ashkenormative)? Print. before. Marks, Gil. Encyclopedia Of Jewish Food. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2010. • Sociocultural, political, and economic significance in the caliphate of al- Print. Andalus. Acknowledgements Marks, Gil. Olive Trees And Honey. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Pub., 2005. Print. • Context of the convivencia, the period of simultaneous toleration and living I offer my sincerest thanks and gratitude to Gloria Ascher, Roden, Claudia. The Book Of Jewish Food. New York: Knopf, 1996. Print. Sachar, Howard Morley. Farewell España. New York: Knopf, 1994. Print. among the three Abrahamic faiths on the Iberian peninsula. Anne Moore, and the Summer Scholars Program for so Trivellato, Francesca. The Familiarity Of Strangers. New Haven: Yale • “Those who left the peninsula took with them their well-defined Sephardic generously providing me with their resources, support, and University Press, 2009. Print. traditions” (Gampel, 34) guidance throughout the course of this project.

Morocco The Ottoman Empire • Established connection between Curaçao • Istanbul (Constantinople), Izmir Spain and Morocco prior to • Influence of time in the Netherlands (Smyrna), Edirne (Adrianople), expulsion • Historical primacy – were some of the Salonika (Thessaloniki), Safed, • Half of the Sephardic Jews who first on the island, thereby helping to and Rhodes were expelled hopped over the establish the culinary and national • Dhimmi status – overarching Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco – culture Islamic culture and society huge density of Sephardim • Intermixing with slave, Dutch, and • Full integration but • Complex relationships with Spanish populations – role in simultaneously varied across indigenous Moroccan Jewish colonialism and slave trade through locations community, Berber tribes, economic connection • Some of the most well-known European populations • Completely distinct agricultural Sephardic dishes today are of • Different example of Islamic context – much more tropical, unlike Ottoman Sephardic origin The Netherlands society previous culinary culture • Preservation of Ladino and • North to South difference in • Focus: Holland • One of the most harmonious cultural strong Sephardic identity • Majority were conversos who Sephardic/Spanish influence integrations I studied • Notable dishes: borekas, boyos, • Notable dishes: zeilouk had settled in Portugal as • Notable dishes: tutu, funchi, panlevi keftes d’aubergine, adafina, couscous Christians while still secretly Italy practicing Judaism then made • Four cities: Livorno, Venice, their way to the Low Countries Ferrara, Ancona in the 17th c. • Spectrum of acceptance and • Practice of Jewish identity was assimilation – mostly based very different, no indigenous on economic benefit of Jewish population Sephardim • Religiously-tolerant Christian • Tensions among context, economic importance Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and of Sephardim, different indigenous Italian Jews agricultural production • Notable dishes: carciofi, • Notable dishes: boterkoeke, bomba, pasticcio bolas (doughnuts), shkanah