As a renowned expert on the Old Testament, Duke professor Marc Brettler has been recruited many times to fact-check scholarly texts that cite the Bible.
But there was something unexpected about a recent inquiry.
Joan Nathan, a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author, needed his help while she researched her 11th collection, “King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World.”
“I don’t get a lot of calls from cookbook authors who deal with the Bible,” says Brettler, who is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor in Judaic Studies at Duke University.
“She was being really, really responsible in trying to understand when different foods and cooking styles were introduced,” he said. “It was wonderful to help out. I respect people who try to get it right.”
Nathan’s book was released this week, just days before families gather for Passover observances. The Jewish holiday begins Monday at sundown.
Nathan reached out to several top-tier academics, including archaeologist Jodi Magness of UNC’s Department of Religious Studies, to ensure that her book was factually accurate. In the book’s acknowledgments, Nathan credits Brettler and Magness for being two of the experts who helped her through the “agonizing process” of organizing vast materials into an engaging study of cultural and culinary transition.
“You don’t want to make historical mistakes when you are talking about things in the Bible,” Nathan said in an interview.
“King Solomon’s Table” goes beyond recipes, and its appeal isn’t limited to Jewish holidays or palates.
Nathan, who hosted a PBS series “Jewish Cooking in America” in the early 2000s, covers more than the epic journey former slaves undertook when they escaped from bondage in Egypt. She traveled to more than 15 countries on five continents to collect stories and recipes that demonstrate how the global Jewish diaspora affected traditional cooking.
A rabbi at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center recommended Brettler to Nathan.
He joined Duke’s faculty in fall 2015 after working at Brandeis University near Boston. His next book, scheduled for October release, will be a revised and expanded second edition of “The Jewish Annotated New Testament,” co-edited with Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt.
“He’s a very important person in his field,” Nathan said.
While Brettler’s name was new to Nathan, that wasn’t the case for him. Brettler, who first learned to cook from his grandmother and mother, has been using Nathan’s books since his undergraduate days.
The two reviewed content first via email and later by phone.
They eventually met for the first time last month when Nathan was in Chapel Hill as a speaker for UNC’s Jewish Food in the Global South symposium.
Through their exchanges, they had a key conversation about whether King Solomon, heroic builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem, existed as an actual historical figure or was the stuff of enduringly devoted lore.
“I would not say that he did not exist,” Brettler wrote in an email. “But I am not at all sure that he did.”
They also spent time examining haroset, a Passover staple typically made with chopped apples, nuts and sweet wine to represent the mortar used by slaves to build the pyramids. Brettler says the earliest known use of the word haroset is in the Mishnah, a Jewish text edited in the land of Israel in approximately 200 CE.
Nathan’s book features a number of haroset recipes – an element of the traditional Seder plate – to demonstrate how ingredients evolved as observant Jews fled their homeland by force or chose greener pastures. A Persian recipe adds pistachios and bananas while a Brazilian version incorporates cashews and dates. A contemporary one from Maine pairs dried blueberries and cranberries with julienned ginger.
Like the adventurous king who inspired her research, Nathan follows the scent of exotic spices and local ingredients that transformed familiar recipes. Her recipe for Syrian-Mexican Chicken with Apricot, Tamarind and Chipotle Sauce is a savory example of a how a traditional roast chicken can happily mingle distinctly Middle East and Latin American flavors.
Nathan writes that the recipe for Georgian Beef Stew is consistent with many early Jewish recipes in which an inexpensive cut of meat is boiled until tender then simmered in a savory sauce until it becomes a “melt-in-your-mouth, silky stew.”
Perfect for Passover, but a welcome addition for any special occasion.
Jill Warren Lucas is a Raleigh-based freelance writer. She can be reached at 3lucases@gmail.com or on Twitter @jwlucasnc.
Salyanka, Georgian Beef Stew with Red Peppers
As I first bit into this delicious Georgian beef stew, I was intrigued by the fact that, as with many early Jewish recipes I have found around the world, the beef, often a tough inexpensive cut, is first boiled in water until it is almost tender and then layered with flavor from onions, spices and bright red bell peppers. No browning the meat first for this recipe. After slowly simmering the beef for a few hours, you are rewarded with a melt-in-your-mouth, silky stew – a perfect main dish for Passover or any special occasion throughout the year.
2 pounds stewing beef, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
2 large red bell peppers (about 1 pound), cut into 1-inch squares
10 ounces high-quality canned plum tomatoes (or about 4 fresh plum tomatoes, peeled, crushed with your hands)
2 heaping tablespoons tomato paste
2 large onions, diced (2 cups)
5 cloves garlic, minced (2 tablespoons)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon hot paprika, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika, or to taste
1/2 bunch parsley, chopped and divided
Put the meat in a Dutch oven or similar heavy pot and cover with about 3 cups water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until almost tender, adding more water if necessary. You might have to periodically skim foam that accumulates on the top.
Add the red peppers and the tomatoes, stir, and cook uncovered for another 20 minutes.
Stir in the tomato paste, onions and garlic, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for another 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until the beef is very tender and almost falling apart.
Season with salt, pepper, and hot and sweet paprika to taste and stir in half the parsley. Serve over rice or potatoes, sprinkled with the remaining parsley.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
The recipe is excerpted from “King Solomon’s Table” by Joan Nathan. Copyright 2017 by Random House. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Halleq, Persian Haroset with Dates, Apples, Pistachios and Pomegranate Juice
Every Passover, I make about five kinds of haroset from different parts of the world. For me, the various blends, representing the mortar used to make bricks in slavery in ancient Egypt, reflect the regional dispersal of the Jews throughout history.
Haroset, a popular dipping sauce for feasts in Babylon, was brought to Jerusalem and later added to the Passover Seder after the destruction of the Second Temple. For centuries, the sauce, originally made of dates, was slowly cooked in copper pots, used to cook down the fruit into a syrupy honey, making the biblical date honey. Then it was topped with ground walnuts. Later, in Baghdad (about 30 miles from Babylon), it was traditional to buy the dates, press them through a special machine, letting the syrup ooze out, and then heat the dates very slowly in a copper pot until they were the thick consistency of a jam-like syrup. I have heard stories about men and women who would roam the streets of Baghdad hawking this date honey served with clotted cream on bread or matzo for breakfast.
As Jews settled on the Silk Road or throughout the Mediterranean, they either brought with them their recipe for haroset, if they could find all the ingredients, or created new ones, based on ingredients where they lived.
Egyptian haroset includes raisins, dates, and nuts, and Persian haroset, called halleq, is filled with nuts and dried fruits, pomegranate juice, bananas, and cardamom as the prominent spice, but uncooked.
1 cup almonds
1 cup roasted, shelled pistachios
1 cup walnuts
1 cup black raisins
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup dates, pitted
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 large apple, peeled, cored, and quartered
1 large pear, peeled, cored, and quartered
2 bananas, peeled
2 to 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 to 1 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 to 1 cup sweet kosher wine
In a large food processor, combine the almonds, pistachios, walnuts, black and golden raisins, dates, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and nutmeg. Pulse until the nuts are coarsely chopped.
Add the apple, pear, and bananas, then pulse until coarsely chopped. Add 2 tablespoons of the vinegar, 1/2 cup of the pomegranate juice, and 1/2 cup of the wine. Pulse again, adding more vinegar, juice or wine to taste or as needed to make a coarse paste. Do not purée; the mixture should retain some crunch.
Yield: 6 cups
The recipe is excerpted from “King Solomon’s Table” by Joan Nathan. Copyright 2017 by Random House. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Maine Haroset with Blueberries, Cranberries and Ginger
This recipe developed from a conversation years ago as Judy Stein and some friends in Belfast, Maine, tasted haroset variations from various places around the world. Together they concocted what has become their traditional Maine haroset, with blueberries, cranberries, and, as a nod to eastern European haroset, an apple. Haroset should resemble the mortar used to build the pyramids, so Judy felt that it should include something long and thin to resemble straw and added ginger (definitely not from Maine). The wine vinegar adds the bitter taste to remind us, as always, of the bitterness of the time in Egypt with the pharaohs.
3/4 cup dried blueberries
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 to 1 cup sweet kosher wine
1 tart apple, diced and peeled
1/3 cup ginger, peeled and sliced into toothpick-size strips
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
Soak the dried blueberries and cranberries in 3/4 cup of the wine for several hours, or overnight, until soft.
Put the berry-wine mixture with the apple, ginger, raisins, wine vinegar, and cinnamon in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat about 10 to 12 minutes, or until the apples are soft. Process in a food processor until combined, but not completely puréed. Add maple syrup or honey to taste and, if needed, 1/4 cup more wine.
Yields about 2 cups.
The recipe is excerpted from “King Solomon’s Table” by Joan Nathan. Copyright 2017 by Random House. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Religious Studies