By Gabriella Herrera
The Italian Jewish community is shrinking, and its culinary culture is vanishing, says cookbook author Benedetta Jasmine Guetta, who set out to document and preserve the history-driven recipes of her community in her book “Cooking alla Giudia.”
“The community is small, maybe about 35,000 Jews in Italy, and that is a very generous accounting. It is unlikely these recipes are going to go any further. The Italian Jewish population is shrinking,” she told a UC Santa Barbara audience recently.
Cookbook author Benedetta Jasmine Guetta opened up about Italian Jewish culture during a talk sponsored by UC Santa Barbara’s Taubman Symposium.
Guetta’s virtual talk was hosted by UCSB’s Taubman Symposium, a speaker series run by the Jewish Studies Program, to discuss Jewish civilization in the contemporary world.
Guetta said the Jewish world and the larger world have tended to be unfamiliar with Italian Jewish culture and history. The Ashkenazi Jewish community is the more “mainstream and well known” in the U.S., she said.
While most Americans think of Jewish cooking as Ashkenazi, or central and eastern European in origin, she said the Jewish Italian community was neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardic—a term used to describe Jews from Spain, North Africa, or the Middle East.
Instead, it has a culinary tradition of its own, that was born from a history of oppression by the Catholic Church and marginalization within the Jewish diaspora.
“Matzo ball soup is not a part of my heritage, where I come from,” said Guetta, who was born and raised in Milan. Now living in Santa Monica, California, she runs Café Lovi, a restaurant that features hallah-style sandwiches and a mix of Italian-style espresso drinks.
In her talk, Guetta said the Italian Jewish community opened up a kitchen of culinary dishes to express its Jewish culture, dating back to Roman times when Jews were forced to live in prescribed areas.
Over 2,000 Jews lived in a Roman ghetto during the Roman Republic period. After dark, the community would visit the fish market to collect any kosher scraps for food. Hungry and determined, Jewish people would boil the fish for sanitary reasons. This fish soup was cooked in crushed tomato sauce with onions and garlic. Called Zuppa Di Pesce, it was born in the ghettos and shaped the Jewish diet.
Cookbook author Benedetta Jasmine Guetta presented these images of the culinary roots of Italian Jewish dishes during her talk as part of UCSB’s Taubman Symposium, about Italian Jewish culinary traditions.
“There is a silver lining with the history. The ghettos from B.C.E. meant Italian Jews were together. It allowed many recipes and traditions to be preserved over the centuries,” Guetta said.
The first Jewish-Roman war from 66 – 70 A.D. led to the creation of a Jewish community during the Roman Empire. Sailing from Israel, the Jews landed in Rome. The early settlements of this community started their own culture.
Political and economic conditions influenced how Jewish communities ate. The Pope issued strict rules permitting the Jewish community of the time to eat only small fish, Guetta said, and no salad that contained any meat or eggs. This arbitrary regulation prompted new recipes.
Guetta described Staccato, one of her favorite Jewish Italian dishes. This flavorful recipe has a piece of beef roasted in a thick tomato puree sauce. Soaked in a meat flavor, the sauce is later used for runny pasta dishes with lots of tomatoes. Guetta discussed her favorite niche recipes as participants asked her about new dishes from her book to try out.
These recipes with historic roots are now part of a tradition that brings together members of the Italian Jewish community for family moments, during Shabbat and holiday gatherings. The culture is disappearing and preserving these recipes paves the way for the culture to live on, she said.
For more than a quarter century ago, the Taubman Symposium has focused on exploring the interconnection between Jews and the cultures in which they exist.
“This presentation of Jewish Italian culture is one of the best examples to show Jewish culture, and the impact on another culture around them — mainly Italy. It’s fantastic,” said Richard Hecht, the outgoing chair of UCSB’s Jewish Studies Program, who directs the Taubman Symposium.
Hecht said he first discovered Guetta when he read her cookbook, which his wife used at home. He especially liked the desserts and was moved to locate the Italian-Jewish cook. Her personality and humor were something that stood out to Hecht.
“She is a really funny person. I can understand why she is successful because of this personality that draws you to her,” he said of Guetta.
Gabriella Herrera is a fourth-year UC Santa Barbara student majoring in Communication. She wrote this article for her Digital Journalism class.