When ‘A Lady’ taught the English to cook kugel and Jews to be English

RITA ERLICH: The first Jewish recipes published in English reveal the place of accomplished Jewish women in 19^th Century high society

Among the welter of cookbooks published in 19^th century England, Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families stands out for its clarity, its practicality, its occasional humour, and its inclusion of Jewish food.

First published in 1845, the book went into many editions. The 1855 edition included a section on Foreign and Jewish Cookery, and among the recipes was one for Jewish Almond Pudding. It was one of the few recipes Acton had not tested herself. “We have tasted the puddings … more than once and have received the exact directions for them from the Jewish lady at whose house they were made.”

A Jewish lady – presumably the same one – provided her, and thereby the readers, with the address of a Jewish butcher in the London suburb of Aldgate, from whom one could procure smoked beef and a chorissa sausage. Acton noted that “all meat supplied by Jew butchers is sure to be of first-rate quality, as they are forbidden by the Mosaic Law to convert into food any animal which is not perfectly free from all ’spot or blemish’“.  She also noted that the Jewish dietary laws which forbade the mixing of dairy and meat were “not very rigidly observed” by most English Jews.

The date of that book is striking. Jews were part of English society by 1855, with a Jewish Lord Mayor of London, Sir David Salomons, a leader in the campaign to allow Jews to sit in Parliament. Lionel de Rothschild took his seat in Parliament in 1858, following the passing of the Jews Relief Act. He had been elected a number of times; the sticking point had been the need to swear the oath “upon the true Faith of a Christian”.

Even if we did not know about the number of wealthy, highly regarded and influential Jews in London at that time, the fact that an author would include specifically Jewish recipes and shopping advice in a bestselling cookbook that also recommended Jewish butchers for the quality of the meat suggests strongly that there was companionable social exchange.

The almond pudding recipe appeared in an earlier book, published in 1846, called The Jewish Manual, edited by A Lady, no doubt the same lady who had entertained Eliza Acton. She was almost certainly Lady Judith Montefiore, wife of the influential philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, and the book was the first Jewish cookbook in the English language. It is full of good advice on domestic issues. She notes in the introduction the number of “highly accomplished and intellectual women whose example proves the compatibility of uniting the cultivation of talents with domestic pursuits..” She is one of the best such examples. I like the image of the learned and accomplished Lady Montefiore and Eliza Acton swapping recipes.

The recipes in the book are a remarkable blend of Jewish food from diverse origins and good contemporary English cooking. There are, for example, two recipes for fried fish: the first, fried in oil, “is usually served cold”. That’s a familiar part of Jewish food over the years, recognisable from a thousand kiddush tables. The second, In the English Way, is fried in butter and to be served hot.

There’s a Bola Hispaniola (a Spanish cake), and a recipe for Kugel and Commean.  Commean? That’s a mixture of soaked legumes and meat cooked overnight in a baker’s oven; the kugel is a sweet pudding baked in a covered basin in the centre of the big pot. It sounds familiar: not cholent, but its close relative, hamin. Sir Moses’ family came from Livorno in Italy, and were Sephardim, as were many of the Jews who came to England from the middle of the 17^th century.

From the book’s introduction: “Our collection will be found to contain all the best receipts [recipes], hitherto bequeathed only by memory or manuscript, from one generation to another of the Jewish nation, as well as those which come under the denomination of plain English dishes; and also such French ones as are now in general use at all refined modern tables.”

The book is a guide to Jewish women of the time: this is the food to cook and eat in England. Add the advice on dress, and the message is even clearer: This is how to be Jewish in England.

There are a few recipes for Passover dishes, but nothing for other festivals, with the exception of Haman’s fritters, with no reference to Purim. Later cookbooks often included a list of Jewish holidays; modern books include specific festival recipes. Presumably, those in possession of The Jewish Manual knew when all the festivals were.  

A Jewish Manual shows up in Australia, unattributed, in what was likely the first Australian cookbook. The Australian and English Cookery Book, by Edward Abbott, was first published in 1864. It includes a section on Hebrew Refection[SF1] . Most of the included recipes come from Judith Montefiore’s book. Kugel and Commean became Kugle and Cornmean, but the recipe is exactly the same. The almond pudding is there, too.

For that, the requirements are half a pound of ground almonds, half a pound of sifted sugar, a little orange flower water, the yolks of ten eggs, and the whites of seven well whisked. Mix all together well, baked in a hot oven in a greased dish, turn it out of the dish and sift over some sugar, or pour over a syrup flavoured with orange flower water or maraschino. Like Eliza Acton, I have not made it myself.

Photo: Kugel (ChopHappy)