Portico

July 1, 2023

Koenig (Little Book of Jewish Sweets), a veteran cookbook author who specializes in exploring global Jewish cuisine, takes readers to Italy for an in-depth look at the culture and food of Roman Jews. This unique culinary tradition was developed over 2,000 years of lives filled with both prosperity and struggle. Koenig's well-researched journey delivers a wealth of history, detailing waves of immigration that shaped Roman Jewish cuisine. Recipes are kosher and deceptively simple, leaning on quality ingredients to provide comfort and flavor. The photographs by Kristen Teague are a mix of environmental and food frames that deliver a strong sense of place and will make one's mouth water. Vignettes throughout the book discuss various topics, from cleaning artichokes to Rome's Jewish restaurants, and will likely delight readers. This travelogue cookbook highlights a hidden gem of Italian Jewish culture and is recommended for those readers and home cooks who are looking to gain a wealth of knowledge and delicious recipes. VERDICT Koenig's diligence with details will likely delight home cooks, especially those who keep kosher, armchair travelers, and history buffs looking to explore a lesser-known side of Jewish cuisine.--Sarah Tansley

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 17, 2023
Stepping through the eternal city’s Portico d’Ottavia into the area once known as Rome’s Jewish Ghetto, Koenig (The Jewish Cookbook) presents a vibrant culinary tour. The accessible recipes reflect a history of Jewish immigration from the second century BCE to the 20th century that produced “a beguiling cuisine” from a “deeply knit community” that is “uniquely Roman.” Chapters on vegetables, soups, fritters, pasta and rice, main dishes, and sweets prepared alla giudia (in the Jewish style) showcase the diverse influences on Giudiaco Romanesco cuisine while also reflecting modern sensibilities. Koenig celebrates the “Roman Jewish love affair” with the artichoke in recipes for simple fried artichokes, the “heart and soul of Roman Jewish cuisine,” and artichoke carpaccio. Numerous dishes, including savory potato pastries and sweet honey-soaked matzoh fritters, reflect an affinity for fried foods originating with street vendors. Pasta and chickpea stew is a garlicky, rosemary-laced bowl of comfort, while glazed lemon almond cake makes a sweet finish. Beef dishes include a kosher-friendly twist on pasta amatriciana that uses dried salt beef in place of traditional cured pork, and a helpful list of Jewish pantry basics and menus for Shabbat round things out. Koenig’s inviting introduction to Roman Jewish fare is sure to inspire home cooks of any faith.

July 1, 2023
Sumptuous recipes take readers on a tour through the culinary history of the Jewish diaspora in Rome (which today numbers about 16,000), and its communities of Italkim, Sephardim, and Libyan Jews, recent arrivals who fled conflict and arrived in Rome in the late 1960s. While they are all Italian Jews, their unique histories are preserved through a diverse array of dishes. North African flavors are evident in dishes like haraimi (spicy tomato-poached fish), safra (syrupy semolina cake), and burik belluz (fried almond pastries in orange syrup), while the food passed down by the Sephardim who lived in the city's Jewish ghetto features common Italian ingredients like pine nuts and raisins in everything from spinach and fish to frittatas and fried matzoh. Koenig (The Jewish Cookbook, 2019) delivers a lively tale of modern-day Roman Jewish food culture, peppering it with bright and enticing photography and histories and anecdotes from Jewish chefs, butchers, and others living in the Eternal City. Ultimately, Portico celebrates some of central Italy's most popular dishes, like zucchini fritters, and reveals their Jewish origins.

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