When Sarine and Murad Kattan left Aleppo, Syria, in 1947 for their honeymoon in Italy, their thoughts were of love and their future in their beloved homeland, where their family and the larger Jewish community had lived and flourished for centuries.
Back in Aleppo, the announcement of the United Nations partition of Palestine fuelled the already smoldering atmosphere of anti-Semitism, setting off pogroms that virtually extinguished all Jewish life, erasing centuries of rich, thriving culture.
Those Jews that survived fled by the thousands, and the honeymooners were forced to remain in Italy, never to see Aleppo again.
By all accounts, the culture and cuisine of the Jews of Aleppo should have perished. They did not. The Syrian Jewish community, extremely tight-knit despite being scattered across many continents, continues to thrive.
Now Sarine and Murad’s daughter, Poopa Dweck, has documented the rich culinary legacy of her parents’ homeland in Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews (Ecco/HarperCollins). Illustrated with magnificent photos, Aromas of Aleppo documents the sumptuous cuisine and unique customs of this vibrant culture.
“When the Jews left Aleppo, they dispersed throughout the world to Mexico, South America, Israel, Panama, Geneva,” noted Dweck by phone from her home in Deal, N.J. “The largest Syrian Jewish community is in Brooklyn. We stay connected – the community is like one. At weddings and bar mitzvahs, we all know each other.”
From the time they arrived in America, the Aleppian community has defied assimilation. “When we came to Brooklyn, to the Lower East Side of New York, other Jews didn’t even think we were Jewish. We were dark-skinned. We looked different. We didn’t eat matzah ball soup and challah. We made our own Syrian flatbread.
“The reason we’re so closely knit, I think, is that we have paid strict adherence to our customs and religious observances. We didn’t go to meatloaf. Through its food, holidays and life-cycle events we’ve kept it intact.”
Passover is the culinary highlight of the year for Aleppian Jews, as for Jews the world over. Through our celebratory meal, the seder (the word means “order” in Hebrew), we retell the 3,500-year-old story of our ancestors’ flight to freedom from the land of Egypt. And everything on the table is laden with meaning.
The centrepiece is the seder plate that holds the traditional symbols. “The plate I use was my mother’s,” Dweck said. “We’re three girls and two boys in the family, and the others knew when she passed away that I was getting that plate.”
The shank bone hearkens back to the days of old when the Passover celebration included offering and eating a sacrificial lamb, and unlike Jews of eastern European ancestry (the majority in the United States), Aleppian Jews present the bone with the meat attached on the seder plate.
Charoset is a fruit and nut mixture symbolizing the mortar used by our ancestors as slaves in Egypt. Every Jewish community in the world makes it with whatever is local.
“Because dates were so plentiful in that part of the Arab world,” Dweck noted, “our charoset would be made purely with all dates, whereas Ashkenazim use apples.”
Aleppian Jewish cuisine is a combination of Mediterranean and Levantine cooking. “Compared to other Arab cuisines, it is elaborate, very opulent, because Aleppo itself was a flourishing commercial centre, and the ingredients came from all over the world and were of the best quality,” Dweck said. “Through Turkish, Persian and Spanish influences that came to Aleppo, it was brought up to a high level. Our cuisine was known as the pearl of the Arab world.”
One factor that distinguishes Aleppian cooking is the use of tamarind. “Whereas the rest of the Arab world uses pomegranate concentrate, we use tamarind,” she said.
Her book tour took her to Beijing, where fresh tamarind grows in pods in the countryside. “I taught the Jewish community there how to make tamarind concentrate. It’s so plentiful there.”
Through Persian influence, Aleppian cooking makes much use of dried fruit, especially apricots, in everything from meat dishes to desserts.
“My mother and the old-timers would get nuts when they’d see these fake cakes for Passover. Our traditional dessert of choice for Passover is Coconut Helou Hindi (candied coconut with pistachios),” she said. “I make it every year. One reason it’s so popular is, a hundred years ago, we couldn’t use chocolate, because it contained lecithin, which is not kosher for Passover. This is our key dessert for the holiday.”
Rice is an important part of the Passover Aleppian table, and a traditional Passover meal will typically include several mehshis (stuffed vegetable dishes) with a meat and rice filling called hashu. “Aleppo is known as the queen of mehshis,” Dweck said.
Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of COOKING JEWISH: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family, www.cookingjewish.com
2 dozen very small eggplants, cored
2 recipes hashu (recipe follows)
3 quinces, cored, peeled, and cut into 6 pieces each
Sauce
3 tbsp. tamarind concentrate, homemade or store-bought (see notes)
juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tbsp.)
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt
6 pieces candied quince (recipe follows), for garnish
Stuff eggplants with hashu. Place alternating layers of quince and stuffed eggplants in a large ovenproof saucepan.
To make sauce: In a small bowl, combine tamarind concentrate, lemon juice, sugar, salt and 1 cup water and mix well. Pour sauce over stuffed eggplants and quince. Place a heatproof plate over them to serve as a weight.
Cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, or until eggplants release moisture. Remove saucepan from heat. Add enough water to cover eggplants 3/4 of the way. Keep heatproof plate on top as a weight. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 30 minutes, or until 1/4 of the liquid remains.
Preheat oven to 300. Transfer saucepan to oven and braise 45 minutes. Uncover and braise 30 minutes more. Garnish with candied quince, if desired. Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Notes: While Sephardi Jews eat rice for Passover, eastern European Jews do not and may enjoy this dish after the holiday.
Tamarind concentrate is sold in Middle Eastern stores. If you cannot find kosher for Passover tamarind concentrate, you can make your own (recipe below).
Shape any leftover hashu mixture into 2-inch balls and cook it with the sauce.
Hashu:
1 lb. ground beef
1/3 cup short-grain white rice
1 tsp. allspice
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1 onion, chopped (1/2 cup, optional)
1 cup pine nuts (optional)
Soak rice in water, enough to cover, for 30 minutes. Drain. Combine meat, rice, allspice, oil, cinnamon, salt, white pepper and, if desired, onion and pine nuts in a large mixing bowl. Mix well.
Tamarind Concentrate:
3 lb. tamarind pulp
3-3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)
3 tbsp. sour salt (citric acid)
In a large mixing bowl, submerge tamarind pulp in about six cups of water. Cover and soak 6 to 8 hours or overnight. After pulp has soaked, while keeping it in the water, pull it apart to make a mash-like, pulpy, soft mixture.
Line the bottom of a colander with cheesecloth. Fit the colander over a large nonreactive mixing bowl. Strain tamarind pulp by pressing it firmly against the surface of the colander, squeezing to extract as much liquid as possible. Pick out any plant matter and pits from the liquid and set it aside.
Place the strained pulp in a clean mixing bowl and submerge in fresh water. Work to pull it apart again, then strain and reserve the liquid. Repeat this process a third time.
Combine all the reserved tamarind liquid and strain through a cheesecloth or fine mesh strainer. Discard the pulp.
Pour the tamarind liquid into a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the sugar, lemon juice if desired, and sour salt to the tamarind liquid. Increase the heat to medium and boil slowly, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until the mixture has a silky consistency akin to a dark, thick syrup. Let the mixture cool thoroughly, then pour into a glass jar. Store in a cool, dry place up to a year. Yield: 4 cups.
Candied Quince:
3 to 4 quinces, cored, peeled and cut in 1-in.-thick slices (about 3 cups)
3 cups sugar
In a medium saucepan, cover quinces with sugar and cook over medium-low heat. The sugar will melt and liquefy, and the quinces will start to turn a beautiful dark and rosy colour.
When mixture bubbles, reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour, or until quinces are thoroughly coated with a thick, gooey syrup. Transfer quince and syrup to a jar, and store in refrigerator for up to 2 months. Yield: 2-1/2 cups.
Source: Aromas of Aleppo.
