A Drizzle of Honey: The Life and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews

David M. Gitlitz, Linda Kay Davidson

Macmillan + ORM, Sep 25, 2000 - History - 526 pages

When Iberian Jews were converted to Catholicism under duress during the Inquisition, many struggled to retain their Jewish identity in private while projecting Christian conformity in the public sphere. To root out these heretics, the courts of the Inquisition published checklists of koshering practices and "grilled" the servants, neighbors, and even the children of those suspected of practicing their religion at home.
From these testimonies and other primary sources, Gitlitz & Davidson have drawn a fascinating, award-winning picture of this precarious sense of Jewish identity and have re-created these recipes, which combine Christian & Islamic traditions in cooking lamb, beef, fish, eggplant, chickpeas, and greens and use seasonings such as saffron, mace, ginger, and cinnamon. The recipes, and the accompanying stories of the people who created them, promise to delight the adventurous palate and give insights into the foundations of modern Sephardic cuisine.

About the author

David Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson are professors at the University of Rhode Island. Each has written several books on Spanish culture, including Gitlitz's Secrecy and Deceit, an alternate selection of the History Book Club and winner of the 1996 National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Studies and the 1997 Lucy B. Dawidowicz Prize for History. They are married and this is the first book they have written together. Their newest book is The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago, now available from St. Martin's Press.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Drizzle of Honey: The Life and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews
• Authors: David M. Gitlitz, Linda Kay Davidson
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: Macmillan + ORM, 2000
• ISBN: 1466824778, 9781466824775
• Length: 526 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / Spain; History / Jewish