Before Ilanit Menachem became a design quality engineer at Philips’ Haifa office, she was an intensive care nurse for 17 years. But, her life’s mission is clear — to preserve the culinary traditions of her family’s community from Cochin (now Kochi) on India’s southwestern coast. She wants to safeguard recipes like those for pastel, or savory pastries filled with spiced chicken and potatoes, and the Shabbat bread appam.

While the exact age of the Cochin Jewish community is unknown, some sources point to its earliest members arriving during the time of King Solomon, nearly 3,000 years ago. At its recorded peak in the 1950s, the community numbered 3,000, but it has all but disappeared, according to Shalva Weil, a scholar of the Jewish communities of India. In Israel, Ilanit says her children are the only ones of their generation to have two Cochini parents and that most of the community has assimilated into Israeli society. “In one or two decades, this tremendous heritage will be lost,” she explains.

Ilanit is quick to point out that her family’s move to Israel in the 1950s was motivated by Zionism, not a need to escape persecution. In India, the community lived peacefully amongst its neighbors — in her mother’s village Chendamangalam, there was a church, a Hindu temple, a mosque, and a synagogue all within one kilometer of each other. “Lore tells us that this was the only place in the world where you could hear the blowing of the shofar, the tolling of the church bell, the blowing of a Hindu shell, and the call of the muezzin sounding in harmony together,” Ilanit adds. 

Historically, the Jewish community in Cochin also dominated the robust local spice trade. When her family was planning to leave India for Israel, her mother’s father Mordechai heard a rumor that there was little food in the new country. “They believed if they brought spices they could sell them and buy food” with the proceeds, Ilanit explains. So they packed peppercorns in their suitcases “as a symbol of what they left behind and of some kind of hope for the unknown future in Israel.” 

This side of her family “had a very strong impact on me,” she adds. She spent Shabbats and vacations on the moshav where her grandparents lived exploring the woods and nearby farms. On Friday mornings, her grandmother Rebecca made appam and recipes like ispetti, or slow-cooked beef with ginger, coriander, and potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce. No one could wait for dinner, so Ilanit, her brothers, and her aunts would sit down for breakfast at 10 a.m. — and thankfully, there was enough left for dinner as well. When she cooks for her own children today, it’s the same, she says, they can’t wait for dinner.

Ilanit wasn’t always interested in these dishes. The Cochini recipes were a “world that belonged to memories from grandma and nothing more,” she writes. When her grandfather died 10 years ago, she realized an entire generation was starting to pass away and with them memories, stories, and foods from their community were being lost. Ilanit started posting on social media, sharing dishes she remembered from her grandmother and decided to launch a blog, which she called Chipappam, after her grandparents’ favorite snack that’s enjoyed on holidays in the community. Today, the site is available in both Hebrew and English and has readers around the world and Ilanit hopes to one day write a book.

Her passion for her work, she says, is inspired by her grandfather Mordechai, who was a cantor. When he was too old to lead services anymore, he went to a recording studio and recorded prayers and melodies from the community so they wouldn’t be lost. “This was his mission to record all the prayers,” Ilanit explains. Preserving these recipes is hers.