Hélene Jawhara Piñer’s book, Jews, Food, and Spain: The Old­est Medieval Span­ish Cook­book and the Sephardic Culi­nary Her­itage, is an engross­ing work of his­tor­i­cal research that draws upon a thir­teenth-cen­tu­ry col­lec­tion of recipes to exam­ine the mul­ti­cul­tur­al and mul­ti­lin­gual tra­di­tions in which Jew­ish culi­nary tra­di­tions devel­oped in the Iber­ian Penin­su­la. The author of that medieval cook­book was Andalu­sian and of Arab ori­gin, and may have been either Mus­lim or Jew­ish. What is fas­ci­nat­ing is that cer­tain foods in the cook­book were marked as Jew­ish, most notably egg­plant, an intrigu­ing top­ic that Piñer explores in depth as she takes read­ers on a food jour­ney from medieval times to the present day, show­ing how cer­tain dish­es found in the medieval cook­book con­tin­ue to be cen­tral to Span­ish Sephardic cui­sine. Food and her­itage are insep­a­ra­ble, and as Piñer notes, ​“Ignor­ing people’s food is to ignore what defines them.” Food must be tak­en seri­ous­ly, as Piñer does. With a doc­tor­ate in Medieval His­to­ry and the His­to­ry of Food, and also as a chef, she brings that vast wealth of knowl­edge and years of expe­ri­ence in the kitchen to her enlight­en­ing his­tor­i­cal study. Indeed, she sug­gests that the book be paired with her cook­book, Sephar­di: Cook­ing the His­to­ry: Recipes of the Jews of Spain and the Dias­po­ra from the 13th Cen­tu­ry to Today.

For read­ers inter­est­ed in learn­ing about the com­plex ways that food came to be a core part of Sephardic iden­ti­ty, this book is indispensable.