Description:
Comprehensive and engrossing, The World of Jewish Desserts takes you on a trip through the world's Jewish communities, sampling their redolent traditional pastries, cakes, and sweets. Gil Marks, author and rabbi, blends baking and history as he explores the Jewish Diaspora and the resulting dissemination of culinary customs and influence around the world. Most of the recipes are culled from the two largest Jewish cultural groups, the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim. In the section on yeast cakes and pastries, Marks begins with a recipe for Pandericas/Heifeteig (sweet yeast dough) which is the basis for many of the following recipes. Each recipe is prefaced by a historical and cultural interpretation and baking tips. Every few pages, Marks inserts a few paragraphs about the country a recipe comes from, a chronicle of the use of certain spices, or baking styles. For example, after a recipe for Kahkahaw Babka (Polish chocolate sweet bread), Marks gives a short history of Jews in Poland and the Baltic States which explains how these dishes developed and were sustained. He also gives a scientific explanation on the properties of basic ingredients and how they interact with one another. With 12 chapters of desserts, including cookies and bars, phyllo and strudel, fried pastries, and Passover desserts, the book is almost mind-bogglingly inclusive. More than a cookbook, it is a culinary history and discourse on a people whose traditions and culture have affected--and been adapted by--many of the world's countries. "The act of serving and consuming food can be an expression of who we are, as well as a genuine spiritual experience," says Marks. "And few foods have the power to please and uplift as well as desserts do." --Dana Van Nest
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