The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden

It had long been focused on the story of the Ashkenazi of Europe, and the hefty salt beef, chopped liver and chicken soup traditions. The travels produced a work that finally shifted the emphasis in Jewish scholarship. I wanted to carry on travelling the world and talking to people

“I just wanted to carry on travelling the world and talking to people,” Roden says now. Judith Jones, also responsible for shepherding the likes of Anne Frank, John Updike and Julia Child to publication, had to wrest it from her hands. The book was 16 years in the making and was only eventually published because of an intervention by her American editor.

That thoroughness is a function of Roden’s reluctance to stop researching. It has a thoroughness that you don’t really see any more.” That had been done before, but Claudia did it in more detail and with more sophistication than anyone else.” The chef, writer and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi agrees. “I love it for the narrative embroidery around the recipes. “In many ways it was the first great encyclopedia of Jewish life,” says the historian and keen cook Simon Schama. Although it sits on my cookbook shelf, and includes many recipes, The Book of Jewish Food is not really a cookbook at all.

It’s fitting that my first interaction with Roden’s masterpiece should not have been to consult a recipe, or check a cooking technique, but to nail a point of cultural practice. ‘Any excuse for grating up potatoes and frying them must be taken’: Jay’s version of Roden’s Latkes.

The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden