The best Kosher Cooking books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Joan Nathan is a Jewish cookbook author and food historian, having written six about Jewish cuisine and two on Israeli cuisine. Her goal is to preserve Jewish traditions by interviewing cooks and documenting their recipes and stories for posterity, and her cookbooks feature both delicious, easy to follow recipes and historical context.

I strongly recommend her book King Solomon's table. You will find everything from Shakshuka to Yeminite Chicken Soup to Challah. The Book of Jewish Food is another classic, but a bit more dry, with less photos. I love photos, haha.

Happy cooking!

Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers: Unique Recipes and Stories from the Times of the Crypto-Jews during the Spanish Inquisition seems promising, especially if you're interested in Sephardic cooking and traditions among people who couldn't always be open about their heritage.

I've had this cookbook highly recommended to me:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/082660238X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_Z1CZFb2NSBK7M

Spice and Spirit: The Complete Kosher Jewish Cookbook

(Chabad Women's Cookbook)

Check out Joan Solomon's King Solomon's Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World as well as Danielle Renov's Peas, Love and Carrots

I really like The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Rosen. She did a huge amount of research and the book is half cookbook, half history textbook. Beautifully written too.

[Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food](https://www.amazon.com/Book-Jewish-Food-Odyssey-Samarkand/dp/0394532589/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3CVYIXPC3V0L7&keywords=jewish+cooking+claudia+roden&qid=1654267624&sprefix=jewish+cooking+claudia+roden%2Caps%2C68&sr=8-4) is probably something you should have. It has both Ashki and Sephardi sections, but Sephardi section is much larger - probably a mix of her being Sephardi and Sephardi cooking being more culturally broad.

If your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother… is Jewish, then so are you.

One woman was in a similar situation to you and traced her family for 15 grandmothers to document her Jewish heritage, then she published a cookbook.

I like to collect cookbooks and read/cook through them. I recently got Jerusalam. It's got such beautiful pictures and I'm loving it. I made the chocolate Krantz cake this weekend and it was so good.

Schmaltz? One of my passions. The best is when you render your own and get the cracklings or gribenes, left behind. This is a good book. The Book of Schmaltz: Love Song to a Forgotten Fat https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316254088/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_JFDTEXRVS46875R3FNNT

Cannot recommend this book enough: https://www.amazon.com/Olive-Trees-Honey-Vegetarian-Communities/dp/0764544136

Not only is it a plethora of vegetarian jewish recipes from throughout the world, but it also tells you WHY these dishes were made by jews of this region. Seriously opened by eyes as to what "jewish" food could be.

I’m a really big fan of King Solomon’s Table! Theres a lot of discussion on Jewish diaspora foods. I’m not Jewish but I’ve absolutely loved a lot of the recipes from this book and the history is great. It’s taught me about a lot of foods that I’d never have tried otherwise like long-boiled eggs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394532589/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=7009917304&hvqmt=b&hvbmt=bb&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1tj7s5fs3_b

The book above is by Claudia Roden. It's Amazing. It takes a much more anthropological view of Jewish food. It's equal parts cook book and cultural history. even from jews in china or india. amazing

https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Jewish-Recipes-Rabinowitz-Family/dp/0761135812/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494968407&sr=1-1&keywords=cooking+jewish

This one is collected from one family. it's great. much more practical as all these recipes are actually used by people in the family. Each one has a story about each dish.

It would probably be more accurate to say "Hebrew National employs a non standard definition of 'kosher' which is not recognized by the majority of Orthodox Jews, most of whom therefore do not recognize Hebrew National as kosher, although Judaism lacks a central authority to officially declare Hebrew National as being non kosher and their certifying rabbi as theologically or doctrinally incorrect, but since they do in fact have a rabbi certifying them as being, in his opinion, kosher, they feel fully justified in calling themselves kosher", but that takes too long to type.

There's a whole chapter devoted to the subject in Sue Fishkoff's Kosher Nation: https://www.amazon.com/Kosher-Nation-Americas-Answers-Authority/dp/0805242651

It would be a tie between my Antique copy of Larousse Gastronomique, and a really interesting one called "In Memory's Kitchen."

Neither one is a traditional "cookbook". Larousse is an encyclopedia that happens to have a lot of recipes in it, and my edition, 2nd, edition still has all of the cool quips and jokes before the editors advised they be removed. In Memory's Kitchen is... different. It is a compilation of recipes, written from memory, during the holocaust by concentration camp victims.

I love both because the recipes are very often just general guidelines. They aren't like modern recipes where you are walked step-by-step through every detail. Rather, you'll see an ingredient list and then "assemble like a pudding" or "prepare like a cookie." They are difficult, and you often have to do work. In the case of In Memory's Kitchen, a number of the recipes were written by people who were terrified for their lives and on on the brink of starvation, so some of the ingredients make no sense. The difficulty really drives home what the people were going through when you try to recreate the food.

I have some cookbooks that look at the history of some Jewish foods. I think Olive Trees and Honey is one of the more interesting ones, for all that it only covers vegetarian cuisine.

Aside from the obvious mixing of local foods with halachic concerns (separating milk and meat: a bit interesting if you lived somewhere where fat was generally animal derived, slow cooked foods for Shabbos, and so on), Jewish cuisine was also impacted sooner by trade than the local cuisine usually was.

http://www.amazon.com/From-Lokshen-Lo-Mein-Chinese/dp/9652293571

I highly recommend this cookbook by my former hydrogeology professor. I had dinner at his house multiple times and the recipes are awesome.