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Recipes from Jewish Mexican Families
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13 Recipes
Recipes from Jewish Mexican Families
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13 Recipes
During the Spanish Inquisition, as Jews fled the Iberian Peninsula for the Ottoman Empire, Europe, and North Africa, some made the long journey to the Americas. Many who arrived in what’s now Mexico were crypto-Jews who maintained Jewish customs in secret.
In “Sabor Judío: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook,” Ilan Stavans and Margaret E. Boyle explain that “By 1810, when Mexico became an independent nation, almost all Sephardic Jews had assimilated into the environment — but not before leaving behind a rich acerbo, a culinary heritage that continues to this day.”
Other Jewish groups began to arrive by the end of that century — some from Eastern Europe and others from the Ottoman Empire, places like Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. In the middle of the 20th century, they were joined by Jewish refugees from WWII who were followed by a wave of immigrants from Israel in the 1970s. Today, there are 50,000 or fewer Jews living in Mexico and many Jews of Mexican descent living in places like the U.S.
Their cuisine is a rich amalgam of local food and the culinary traditions they arrived with. “Through marriage and nonstop movement, the ongoing adaptations and fusions of Jewish Mexican cuisine and culture continue to evolve,” Stavans and Boyle note.
Two of the best examples of Mexican and Jewish cuisines fusing together are gefilte fish in a piquant and spiced tomato sauce and matzah ball soup with chiles and cilantro. In some families, traditionally Mexican dishes like chicken in mole may be served alongside challah for Shabbat dinner or kibbeh from Syria may be accompanied by fresh salsa. There are also traditional Jewish recipes like a vegetarian mina for Passover that remained largely unchanged by its journey to Mexico.
Explore recipes from other Latin American Jewish communities and check out our full recipe archive with Jewish recipes from around the world.
In this collection
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13 Recipes
