Electric Mixer

No large sign—just a plaque next to a simple security button—tells you that this is the gate to a simple building housing the Cercle Bernard Lazare. The center was named in memory of Bernard Lazare, who, during the Dreyfus Affair, was a left-wing literary critic, anarchist, Zionist, and newspaper editor. He bravely defended Captain Dreyfus, and won over Jewish artists such as Camille Pissarro to the cause. The center sponsors Jewish cultural events, choosing not to advertise its location because of previous anti-Semitic attacks. When I entered this very bare-boned building, it was full of activity. Jeanine Franier came out of the kitchen to greet me, bringing along a waft of the delicious aromas from her oven. Every Thursday, before the center’s weekly lectures, she cooks. She believes that people listen to lecturers more attentively if they know a little food will be served. Regardless of what her staff cooks as a main course, this cheesecake from her Polish past is served for dessert. It has become an integral part of the lectures, and was published in the Cercle’s cookbook, called Quand Nos Boubés Font la Cuisine (When Grandmothers Cook), which she wrote in part as a fund-raising device, in part as a way of preserving a culture that is rapidly being forgotten. The cheesecake reminds me of many I ate all over France, including the one at Finkelsztajn’s Delicatessen in Paris. It tastes clearly of its delicate component parts, unlike the creamy block of cheesecake with a graham-cracker crust we find in the United States.

Ever since Ana Bensadon moved to Madrid from her native Tangier in the 1950s, she has been writing to Sephardic Jews all over the world asking for recipes. “My idea is to leave a legacy for the young women,” she told me, while visiting her daughter in Florida. “It is very important to maintain fidelity to our traditions and to transmit them to the new generation.” Many recipes, like fijuelas (see page 360) and flan, are commonly known, but others, like this chocolate mousse using olive oil instead of cream, is a fascinating adaptation of a local French delicacy to comply with the laws of kashrut.

Gâteau de Savoie is one of the earliest French cakes to use whipped egg whites as a leavener. Savoie is the mountainous area between Italy and France, long used as a travel route, and home to many Jews from the twelfth century on. The area was first integrated into France in 1792. The similarity between the gâteau de Savoie, pan d’España, and Italian ladyfingers (also known as savoiardi) leads me to believe that the recipe may have traveled throughout the Mediterranean with Sephardic Jews and other travelers. This sponge cake tends to dry out after only a day, but it can also absorb a large amount of liquid. Serving it with a homemade fruit syrup, or just fresh strawberries with a little sugar, will keep it moist.

This recipe for chocolate-almond cake is four hundred years old, and was passed down orally in one Bayonne family from mother to daughter in Spanish, Ladino, and then French. The accent of rum was probably introduced in the seventeenth century. My guess is that at first the eggs would have been whole, and later separated, the whites whipped to give it more height, probably in the eighteenth century. This cake can be made with matzo cake meal for Passover.

Recently, a number of stylish kosher restaurants have opened in Paris. One is the superchic Osmose, which calls itself a fusion and health-food restaurant. When I dined there, it was packed with well-dressed young French couples who could clearly afford the steep prices. The food, prepared by French-born Jewish Tunisian chef Yoni Saada, is delicious and sophisticated. Our meal began with a long, narrow plate filled with cumin-roasted almonds, fava beans, and tiny olives, and a tasty carrot-and-mango soup served in a champagne glass. And for dessert: an extravagant plate with that now classic molten chocolate cake and little marshmallow lollipops. Molten chocolate cake began as a simple French birthday cake that everyone’s grandmother made until the Alsatian chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten accidentally undercooked one. To his surprise, the guests loved it. An instant classic was born, now found just about everywhere, even at this chic kosher restaurant in Paris. The beauty of this cake is that the batter can be made ahead, poured into a cake pan or muffin tins, refrigerated, and baked 10 minutes before serving.

When I ate lunch at the elaborate Hôtel Daniel, located between the Champs-Élysées and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, I felt as though I were transported to a salon in Proust’s Paris. I met the young chef, Denis Fetisson, who brought out an array of dishes. Among them was this wonderful Roquefort soufflé, which Denis serves to vegetarians and to his kosher clientele. It is easy and elegant and makes a wonderful meal when served with a large salad.

The French love their bread, but they usually buy it in boulangeries. In many homes I visited, though, people would make a quick bread like the goat-cheese-and-apricot bread on page 145. When they had a bit more time, on a weekend morning perhaps, they would make a heartier bread and eat it throughout the week. This recipe, which I tasted at a friend’s house in Paris, is very forgiving and can withstand additions and variations. I often add bits of leftover nuts and dried fruit. Great for breakfast with goat cheese or preserves, it is also a wonderful sandwich bread.

Once, I asked two-star Michelin chef Thierry Marx of Cordeillan-Bages in Pauillac, the greatest wine-producing area of France, why he uses beets in so many of his dishes—beets for color, beets for sweetness, beets for texture, and beet borscht purée. He replied that he likes to play with the flavors and shapes of his childhood, reminding him of his Jewish grandmother from Poland, who raised him in Paris. “Cooking is a transmission of love,” he told me. One wouldn’t necessarily think of the food Thierry serves in his stunning restaurant as particularly Jewish—it is so molecular, so Japanese (because of where he studied), and so French (because of where he grew up). The dining room of the château, decked out in sleek blackand-white furniture with hints of red, looks out on a vineyard laden with ripe dark grapes ready for picking. But when the bread basket arrived, it contained what looked like a miniature chocolate or poppy-seed babka. My first bite, though, told me that I had still been fooled. This trompe l’oeil was in fact a savory babka, filled with olives, anchovies, and fennel—a delicious French take on a sweet Polish and Jewish classic.

Daniel Helmstetter lives his life by the sign that hangs above his bakery in Colmar: “Le talent et la passion.” A fourth-generation baker, he told me that he “fell into the mixer and never came out.” The Helmstetter Bakery was started by his grandfather in 1906 in the central square of Colmar, a town once known for its large Jewish population. Each Thursday and Friday, Daniel still makes barches au pavot, an oval-shaped challah with poppy seeds and a thin braid on top, for his Jewish clientele. Barches (also spelled berches), which means “twisted,” is also a derivation of the Hebrew word birkat (blessing), from the verse in Proverbs 10:22, Birkat Adonai hi ta-ashir, “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich.” “A local rabbi said that the braid represents the tribes of Israel,” Daniel told me over coffee and pastry at his home near the bakery. “And the poppy seeds, the manna in the desert.” Poppy seeds, once grown in the region, may have disappeared from the fields, but the taste from them lingers on. For his barches, Daniel makes a dough that is tighter than his baguette dough, so that it can be easily braided. In a few nineteenth-century versions, boiled potatoes were substituted for some of the flour in the dough, perhaps to help preserve the loaf over the course of the Sabbath.

In the Middle Ages, pain pétri (kneaded bread) got its name because women kneaded and formed the bread at home and then baked the loaves in public ovens, a tradition that remained in Morocco until recent years. Even in the late Middle Ages, when bread could be easily purchased from a baker, Jewish women still made the pain pétri as one of the three mitzvoth that a woman performs for the Sabbath. (The other two are to light candles, and to go to the ritual bath, or mikveh.) The Sabbath tables of even Reform and Liberal Jews have two loaves of bread. These represent the double portion of manna that was gathered on the eve of the Sabbath during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Except on the eve of the Sabbath, manna had to be gathered daily, for it spoiled overnight. Madame Hamier made her recipe using cake yeast, something not readily available in the United States these days, so I have substituted dry yeast here.

The brilliant white milk ice cream with a chewy texture of my childhood was made with sahlab (also known as salep; see page 46), the ground root tuber of a member of the orchid family, and mastic, a hard resin exuded from the lentisk tree. It has become something of a mythical ice cream, as it can no longer be found in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, countries that used to make it. Sahlab is very expensive, and what you buy is often adulterated. Be careful not to use too much mastic, as the taste would become unpleasant.

Turkey has a very wide range of milk puddings. I once spent much of one night watching specialist milk pudding–makers at work, endlessly stirring creams in giant copper cauldrons. They said they had to work at night because that was when the milk arrived, which was why, they complained, they could not recruit young people to do the job. I don’t blame them. This pudding, made with ground almonds, is my favorite.

Here is a fantastic coffee cake that tastes like gingerbread: perfect for cold days or nights.

Buttery and delicious, this dough can be flavored and shaped many different ways. In the convection oven I bake three pans at a time. For the best flavor, wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 24 hours. During this time the butter and additional flavors (see variations) develop.

This is a basic recipe for a simple-to-make jelly roll. Instead of spreading the cake with jelly, you can spread it with whipped cream and sprinkle with fresh berries before you roll up the cake. Another option is to substitute a rich chocolate ganache and roll up the cake before the ganache sets.

Brown sugar in these cut-out cookies gives them a rich, caramel-butterscotch flavor. Use any cookie cutters, or follow the directions for Praline-Filled Chocolate Drizzle Cookies (page 217) for delicious cookies shaped, filled, and frosted in mass-production style.

To synchronize a dessert soufflé with the rest of the meal, you can get the whole thing ready for baking an hour ahead, and pop it into the oven about 25 minutes before you plan to serve dessert.

This popular dessert can be made a day ahead and baked at the last minute. The chile powder adds a mild heat and enhances the chocolate flavor.

This moist, even-textured cake is wonderful served plain with a cup of herbal tea. When raspberries are in season, top slices with the berries. To gild the lily, add a dollop of whipped cream.

This old-fashioned cake is bathed in an orange syrup when it is still hot from the oven.