| Jewish
Cooking and Kosher Cooking and what is the difference?
Jewish cuisine has
been formed both by the dietary laws of kashrut
("keeping kosher") and the many cultures in which Jews
have traveled.
Jewish cuisine has influences from the cuisines of the
Balkans, Galicia, Russia, Spain, Portugal and the
Middle East. For example, there are a number of cold
starters which originate in the Middle East and which
were brought by the Turks to the Balkans.
The roots of Jewish cooking, however, are in the
Middle East, where the Jews came from, and it was
heavily influenced by the cuisine of Ancient Egypt and
the Byzantine Empire. It has been suggested, for
example, that the major role played by
garlic, leek and onions in Jewish cooking is due
to these influences. Arab and Moorish cooking had an
equal influence on the Jewish cuisine.
At the same time, aspects of Jewish cooking were often
adopted by the cultures in which they lived. The rose
jam which is typical of Russian and Galician cookery,
for example, may have originally been imported by Jews
during the golden age of Jewish culture in Spain.
See:
Jewish Foods |
