I love a cookbook that is more than just recipes and pretty pictures. This is that book. Yes, of course there are recipes accompanied by some lovely photos, but also insight into the history of the Mexican Jewish community that I wasn’t terribly knowledgeable about. I enjoyed learning about the genesis of the diaspora and the blending of cultures. The recipes are familiar, but influenced by the local ingredients. Food is of course important to us, not just for nutrition, but for bringing us together. I very much enjoyed the experience of this book.

Sabor Judío is more than just a beautiful cookbook of amazing recipes of Jewish Mexico. It shares with deep respect the history of La Comunidad, its present, and looks to its future. The research to ensure accurate portrayal of how the unique culinary culture of the Jewish Mexican community has evolved is evident and heartwarming. The recipes blending Mexican flavors with Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi traditions are mouthwatering and approachable for cooks outside of Mexico. This reader found the personal stories of critical importance and the most fascinating. This is a cookbook that has earned a place on their book shelf.

As the High Holy Days approach, I’ve been thinking more about Jewish cooking, since I’m about to be doing a LOT of it. There are so many different Jewish culinary traditions, and in recent years, I’ve been slowly incorporating different spins on the traditional foods that I’m used to eating. This book seemed like the perfect one for me, and there are so many recipes that I’ve bookmarked in the story to back that up.

This isn’t simply a cookbook with recipes and photos, there are little sections where the authors provide information about Mexican Jews, and those were some of my favorite parts of the book. I learned about the diaspora community in Mexico City, the various ways in which the melting pot culture there influenced Mexican Jews and their cooking, and how certain traditions were maintained yet updated according to where they made their home and what was available to them. But the common theme in the story of nearly every single Jewish family is that persecution caused them to flee to new places.

Mexican Jews came from all over the world—and continue to do so, hailing from the Ottoman Empire, Spain and Portugal, the SWANA region, and from central and eastern Europe, all melding together to create one of the coolest fusion cuisines that I have seen. These authors have collected such a wide range of recipes, featuring local ingredients (which can be found easily outside of Mexico) and familiar favorites.

The recipes are relatively simple to follow. Most of them have shorter ingredient lists and aren’t overly complex, although there is a molé recipes, and I already expected that one to be more involved. Seeing staple holiday foods, such as gefilte fish, gribenes, and matzo ball soup paired with pico de Gallo, jalapeños, and tamarind had my mouth watering. The photos are stunning, and made me want to try things I don’t normally eat simply because they looked so pretty and tasty.

Another thing that I enjoyed about this book was how each recipe came with a little blurb about where it derived from and how it was meaningful to the authors. There are holiday menus, and an explanation of how each Jewish holiday is celebrated in Mexico. This is a wonderful cookbook, and I can’t wait to try out some of these desayunos, almuerzos, cenas, and sobremesas. I loved never having to flip past a recipe because it included ingredients that aren’t kosher or combines meat and dairy, which isn’t kosher either. Plus, the desserts and drinks sound pretty amazing as well. This is a book not to miss is you like Jewish cuisine, Mexican cuisine, fusion food, and cookbooks with simple recipes for home cooks.

The recipes were easy to follow and incredibly tasty. I am a fan of fusing foods and cuisines together and this book does an excellent job of it. I appreciated that there was information placed in the book about both traditional methods of food and why/how it’s being combined. I am looking forward to trying more of the recipes!

What a gift from Ilan Stavans and !Margaret Boyle. Preserving the history and culture of the Sephardic Jews is so important. The beauty of the fusion of Jewish and Mexican cuisine. Thank you for keeping our Safta,s memories alive.

I received a copy of this eBook from netGalley for a honest review.

I loved seeing how the Mediterranean Jewish foods could so easily blend with Mexican flavors and vice versa. This cookbook made my mouth water and got my creative juices flowing.

Sabor Judio: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook
by: Ilan Stavans + Margaret E. Boyle
2024
Ferris & Ferris Books

Years before we had "pop-up" restaurants and food trucks, Mexican Jews transformed their kitchens into "fondas', and opened their door to family and members of the La Comunidad. Over time, they became taqurias, mezcalerias, bakeries and cafe's. La Comunidad is based around tradional set rituals,and so the menu was constantly changing. The fondas typically used locally grown produce, and products from recipes given and collected from local households, and family cookbooks-many passed down for generations.

That is exactly the type of recipes you will find here. The sense of continuity, familia and community. The shared stories of these dishes precede each recipes and it gives the strong ties of the dishes to their heritage much depth.

There are so many recipes here, most look pretty easy to make. Many of them have color photos, and are from well-known and awarded chefs and local chefs. Some home cooks-like you, and me.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in the history of foods and recipes, and traditions and cultural importance of them, in Mexican Jewish tradition. Well-done and documented.
Thanks NetGalley for sending this e-book ARC for review.
#NetGalley #SaborJudio

Thank you to the publisher and the author for the advance reader copy. This book is a stunning compilation of both recipes and the long and varied history of the Mexican Jewish community. The stories anchor the recipes in the pages and provide the backdrop to a retelling of vibrant Jewish life. The pictures are stunning and descriptions are lush. I love the way in which the recipes have been organized for holiday meals. The Mango Kugel was a perfect addition to a Shavuot table in Southwest Florida.

This is such an incredible book full of culture and some of the most amazing fusions of cuisine.

So wonderfully executed!

Thank you to NetGalley, University of North Carolina Press, Ferris and Ferris Books, Ilan Stavans and Margaret E. Boyle for allowing me to have an ARC of this delightful book!

Thank you University of North Carolina Press, Ferris and Ferris Books, and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. This wonderful book provides a great description of Jewish history and culture in Mexico along with some delightful recipes very heavy on cheese. It was an interesting read where I enjoyed the historical and cultural aspect much more than the recipes. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to any Mexican food lover.

Sabor Judio: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook (Sabor Judío means “Jewish Flavor”) is much, much more than a cookbook; it’s a chronicle of the Jewish diaspora, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic, yes, but it’s also the timeless story of immigrants of every kind adjusting to their new homeland and combining both the old and the new in their cooking.

Authors Ilan Stavans and Margaret E. Boyle both descend from Polish Jews who emigrated to Mexico City. (Mexico City-born professor Ilan Stavans’ father was a telenovela actor.) I frankly enjoyed hearing stories about their families and others: Ashkenazim, Sephardia, secret Jews, conversos (Jews who converted under the pressure of the Inquisition). I loved hearing the histories of each recipe, which were jotted down in Spanish, Ladino, Yiddish, Arabic, Polish, Russian or Hungarian — and sometimes a combination of more than one language — more than I loved the recipes.

That’s not to say that there aren’t dozens of interesting recipes here. I’m Cuban, and I’ve read my share of Mexican cookbooks, but you won’t find recipes like these in many other places. A very few are no different than you’d get at any Mexican home; some dishes have remained nearly unchanged from the Old Country: Huevos Haminados is a pretty straight Sephardic dish. However, most of them have a totally different take: chilaquiles made with matzoh instead of tortillas for Passover, tacos al pastor made kosher by swapping in chicken instead of pork, pickled beets with raisins and chile de árbol, Tomato Oregano Beef Kebabs, Bourekas con Queso Blanco, beef tzimmes with piloncillo and pumpkin, Israeli Salad with Queso Oaxaca, couscous with chipotle salsa, Caldo Verde with Corn and Matzah Balls, Falafel Taquitos, Pierogi with Pico de Gallo. You get the idea. I was surprised how many dishes were converted — forgive the choice of word — by adding a triumvirate of dried pasilla chiles, dried ancho chiles and dried guajillo chiles, including Brisket Tacos in Three-Chile Salsa! Fusion cooking at its finest and most interesting. Highly, highly recommended, even if you don’t use a single recipe — which, I promise, you will!

Worthless trivia: When I was growing up, my Cuban-born mother referred to all beans as frijoles — except for white beans; those were judías. I wish I had thought to ask her why before she died. Her father was from the Canary Islands, so maybe it came from Spain?

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley, Skyhorse Publishing and Good Books in exchange for an honest review.

Sabor Judío is a well-edited and presented book about Jewish and Mexican cuisines with a rich range of recipes.
The recipes are interesting, (mostly) easy-to-follow and exciting.
4.5 stars.

Honestly, this book is really nice. It’s a cool introduction to a community I didn’t really know about. However, it suffers in a few key ways. It’s overly academic writing isn’t as competitive or as assertive as other cookbooks on the market. It’s obviously personal to the authors, but it’s all written in third person. Secondly, the graphics seem outdated. A book with these graphics color palettes could’ve easily been published ten or fifteen years ago. It’s so interesting and original, but too committed to being an objective document. My ebook was also missing a lot of random letters.

I thought this was an interesting mixture of cultural cuisines.

Jewish Mexican flavors were new to me, but I deeply enjoyed exploring these recipes and reading through this book. I would recommend this book to chefs who want to surprise their customers with interesting, different dishes.

***Thank you to NetGalley, Ferris and Ferris Books and to the University of North Carolina Press for providing this title in exchange for a review.

These days, when you can find several recipes of virtually any dish you care to make with ratings and feedback in a matter minutes of searching online, a cookbook has to bring more than a collection of recipes. A cookbook needs to concentrate on deeper information, be it on a particular ingredient, a detailed showing of techniques, or a history of the foods of a particular culture and region as I found in this charming book. Sabor Judío legitimately blends history of a culture along with a presentation of a collection of dishes that are shaped by this culture and its history. The added delight of the recipes being collected from a variety of sources rather than just one person or family gives a better picture of the diversity within this diaspora. Recipes and stories are grouped into chapters on Desayuno (breakfast), Almuerzo (lunch), Cena (dinner), Sobremesa (dessert), and Fiestas Judias (holiday/celebrations). The book was an interesting read beyond exploring recipes and the care in organizing the book and collecting the recipes and their stories comes through the pages. Each recipe is precisely presented with a description, servings and estimated prep time, a clear list of ingredients and a listing of directions, and, in many cases, a photo of the completed dish. I am looking forward to trying several of the dishes that caught my eye in the future and even using the suggested menus from the fiestas section to guide my planning for a celebration. I recommend this book for anyone looking to enrich their knowledge of the Jewish diaspora through food as well as learn more about the fusion of Mexican and Jewish cooking.
I received advanced access to this book thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, University of North Carolina Press) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

Nice cookbook with some recipes that I would try. I wish there were more photos and less stories. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

This is an interesting combination of the history of Mexican Jewish culture and recipes. It details typical Jewish recipes with Mexican influences and the main traditions Mexican Jews have adapted and turned into traditions.

I have an extensive cookbook collection and was thrilled when I saw I was approved for the ARC of Sabor Judio. I really enjoy Mexican food, and Jewish food, so I was looking forward to seeing how the fusion is presented. As I looked through the book, I appreciated the cultural tidbits and introductory information. However, some of the recipes were just a bit too outlandish for me. I prefer to keep things.a bit more traditional when it comes to Jewish foods, and it brings to mind how although I like mint, and chocolate -- I do not care for mint chocolate chip ice cream. I'm sure there are those who will enjoy these twists on old classics, and the background information sprinkled throughout is why I am giving it 3*.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my honest review in exchange for this ARC.

I love a cookbook infused with the history and stories of the people and ingredients alongside fantastic recipes. Sabor Judio. does just that! Beautiful food photography and well written recipes can be found in its pages. It is also a short but sweet history of the Jewish diaspora in Mexico. I'm very much looking forward to giving many of these recipes a try, and maybe shaking things up a little at our next high holy day meal.

This is an excellent cookbook for those who want authentic Mexican Jewish recipes. Many recipes are handed down by elders, and there is a story and history to preface every recipe. They seem quite authentic although modernized with ingredients like sweetened condensed milk and matzoh ball mix. I would have preferred more photos and the inclusion of nutritional information. The recipes use a lot of wheat and meat, so they may not work as well for vegetarians or gluten free folks. This will be a treasure in many kitchens, I’m sure.

I read a temporary digital copy of this book for review.