Persecution of early American Jews and how it effected their cooking

[Ian David]

Cooking: Colonial Jewish Cuisine
Recreating the cusine of the first Jews in America. Recipes include 1600s
Barley Salad, Strawberry Spinach Salad, and Corn Pudding.
by Tina Wasserman

If you think it's hard to find good produce in the markets today, how do you
think you would have fared had you been one of the twenty-three Jewish
refugees who arrived in New Amsterdam from Brazil in 1654?


Imagine your group landing, penniless, in the harbor of New Amsterdam
(pirates looted your ship enroute). Governor Peter Stuyvesant confiscates
your few remaining possessions to pay the ship's captain, who claims that he
is owed money for his services. Stuyvesant also writes to the Dutch West
India Company requesting permission to expel you and the others because, he
claims, your indigence would be a burden to the community. Influential Jews
in Holland intercede with the Dutch West India Company, petitioning that
your group be accorded sanctuary and the same full rights Jews enjoy in
Holland. You prevail and Stuyvesant is forced to grant you permission to
stay, but he imposes unlawful taxes and restrictions on your ability to
work. A fellow refugee, Asser Levy, files and wins a lawsuit against
Stuyvesant for refusing to issue Jews trade permits. In 1661 he receives his
butcher's license and becomes the first Jewish tradesman in the colonies.

On the culinary front, as well, you demonstrate persistence and
inventiveness, melding ingredients brought from Europe, the Caribbean, and
Africa (such as apples, wheat, barley, oats, and rye) with indigenous foods
(corn, squash, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins) introduced to you by Native
Americans. You mill flour from wheat and rye to produce pies and pastries
filled with wild strawberries, blackberries, and cranberries, sweetening
these treats with native honey and maple sugar. You import cinnamon, nutmeg,
and cloves from Holland, as well as sugar, molasses, cocoa, vanilla, and rum
from Brazil and the Caribbean. African slaves introduce you to beans,
peppers, and coconut milk.

Like most colonists, you produce all the foods you eat. As there is no
refrigeration, fish and meats are preserved by smoking or salting. Your
community introduces a third technique--pickling--a process which enables
you to prepare foods in advance of the Sabbath and, in the new land,
prevents starvation whenever fresh food is scarce.


We can celebrate the 350th anniversary of the arrival of those first
twenty-three Jewish immigrants to America's shores by enjoying recipes with
ingredients familiar to our colonial forebears. And let us all eat in good
health!

More:
http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1019&pge_prg_id=5149&pge_id=1138