What is Jewish cooking in France? That is the question that has haunted Nathan over the years and driven her to unearth the secrets of this hidden cuisine. Now she offers the fruits of her quest in this extraordinary book.

Reviews

"If the very act of cooking connotes love, then the combination of recipes with stories is an open
acknowledgment of the emotional bonds that food creates. As is her wont, TV host and award-winning cookbook author Nathan ("Jewish Cooking in America," 1994, plus eight others) not only plunges into her collection of 200 recipes but also narrates, factually and with no small sentiment, the history of Jews in France. First, it's a highly personal mission, prompted by her stay as a teenager in France in the 1950s. It's also a motley narrative, filled with stories of persecution as well as joy, documented with personal accounts of the Holocaust and memories of kosher cooking (i.e., adhering to Jewish dietary laws). Food items represent the influence of Alsatian, Provencal, Moroccan-Tunisian, Algerian, and Eastern European cuisines--a well-functioning melting pot that yields brik (a North African turnover), borscht (the French equivalent of this Russian beet soup), Alsatian pear kugel (noo