Yiddish Food Culture: And What About the Taste?

Growing up in Lithuania and Israel before finally settling in England, where I have lived for more than 30 years, I ended up with a huge collection of recipes on scraps of paper in five different languages. Many of the dishes I cook today I learnt from my mother and mother-in-law at a time when recipes were transmitted by word of mouth. I have always been passionate about food and cooking, so in 2022 I wrote a book ‘And What About the Taste?’ to preserve and pass on this Jewish food heritage to my family. It is a domestic cookbook filled with recipes that reflect the seasons, the religious calendar, and Yiddish culture. In honouring the Jewish belief that food is a sacred focus of family life, the book is full of anecdotes about the people and places associated with the dishes. In this talk I will share many of these stories and recipes and hopefully encourage others to participate with their own memories from home.

Dr Sima Beeri was born in Lithuania, where Yiddish was her first language. As a teenager, she moved to Israel and eventually settled in London. Sima has a PhD from University College London (UCL) where she taught Yiddish culture and language. She recently retired from university but still teaches privately and at Ot Azoy, a Yiddish summer school in London. Sima has published two books and is working on her third.