(JTA via The Nosher) — There is no alternative for consuming a dish in its original location, especially in a home kitchen by hands with thousands of dinners under their belts. For me, coming across a recipe, trying it out, and being transported to a new world by its flavors comes in a close second….
Jews have lived in India for ages. The three main factions of the Jewish population in India are the Bene Israel, Cochin Jews, and Baghdadi Jews, who have adapted their original cuisines to local products and influences while maintaining kosher regulations. The result is a delectable confluence. The Jews of Cochin, India’s oldest Jewish community,…
Erusha Newman is certain of three things: she is Indian, she is Jewish, and she eats food only Indian Jews eat. Beyond that, the specifics get hazy. Newman is one of only a few dozen known Bene Israel residents in the Chicago region, one of India’s five native Jewish communities. She is the group’s designated…
Esther David, a Sahitya Akademi Award-winning artist, has released a new book that depicts Jewish life in India. She describes the culinary customs of this little society, whose 5,000 members live in isolated enclaves around the country. In India, the Jewish community makes up a tiny yet important fraction of the population. In India, there…
Flower Silliman would treat herself to Calcutta’s finest street dishes on the eighth day, when it was all over. Friends, relatives, and others from the city’s renowned Baghdadi Jewish community – which now numbers less than 20 – kept her company. “Kachoris, samosas, luchis… everything banned was cherished on this day,” the 86-year-old recalls, recalling…
Siona Benjamin tells me as she stands in her sunlit kitchen in Montclair, N.J., with the ingredients for coconut chicken curry — cans of coconut milk, fresh ginger, and around, silver tray lined with small bowls of ground spices — strewn out before her on the island. “Green peas served in golden turmeric rice were…
This book’s theme is inextricably linked to the author’s identity. She is a member of Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s Bene Israel Jewish community. Food is more than just a source of sustenance; it also contains the key to understanding migration, survival, and assimilation histories. Communities that have been uprooted do not cut ties with their past. They…
Chicken Chitarnee, a Jewish curry from India, is an onion and tomato-based curry with a few Indian spices and a lot of lemon juice and vinegar. My family’s favorite dish is Chicken Chitarnee, an Indian Jewish curry. It’s a curry made with onions and tomatoes that are spiced up with a few Indian spices and…
India is a culturally and gastronomically diverse Asian Earth Mother. Three peculiar Jewish communities, located in separate parts of the country, have been sheltered among its millions for decades. The Baghdadi Jews of Calcutta, the Bene Israel of Bombay on the Konkan peninsula, and the so-called Black Jews of Cochin in southwest India is the…
Ingredients: For the rice 2 cups of basmati rice Few strands of saffron 2 tablespoons of canola oil (if cooking on a stove top) 1?4 teaspoon of salt 4 cups of water For the lamb 2 pounds deboned leg of lamb, cut into medium-sized cubes Water to cover 1?4 teaspoon of salt 2 bay leaves…