The Jewish Food Society, a new non-profit, aims to be an archive of Jewish recipes from around the world — before they are lost forever. It wants to preserve old family recipes.
“I realized there is an urgency in capturing these stories because the older generation is about to leave the world, and many of these recipes are labor- and time-consuming in a way that we should really protect them,” the society’s founder, Naama Shefi, told the Jewish Telgraphic Agency (JTA). “These are skills that would just disappear if no one could capture them in a methodic way.”
The project, which launched officially in March and receives financial support from several Jewish foundations, is still in its early stages. Just over a dozen recipes have been added to the online archive, but more are on the way. Along with the recipes are photographs and stories of the cook’s family history, as well as how he or she learned to make the dish.
Read the rest of the story in the JTA article.
Hello Gail. Thanks for your blog… always clear, articulate, interesting, pertinent. I am a Montrealer currently living in Edmonton. I do miss the food culture in la belle province.
Re your recent item on the Jewish Food Society’s new food archive, if they have not already seen this book they should check it out. Published by HarperCollins, 2005, author is Matthew Goodman from Brooklyn, NY. Title is “Jewish Food – The World at Table” 394pp, 170 recipes from 29 countries. Similar format and content to JFS. Also contains numerous essays on, for example, ingredients such as chickens, and on Jewish communities, history, how & what they eat. Includes (but not always) the name of the person providing the recipe, who they got them from, who brought them to North America… Synagogue connections if any, etc.
Good suggestion. Thanks for sharing.