Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (2024)

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (1)

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MilanNew HavenMilan

Malindi, Kenya and BrooklynParma, Italy

5 recipes

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (2)

Latkes Topped With Stracchino (Creamy Italian Cheese)

About 201 h

Ingredients

  • 1 large yellow onion
  • 2 large russet potatoes, peeled
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • Vegetable or sunflower oil or any other neutral oil for deep-frying
  • 8 ounces stracchino cheese for serving

Cook

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (3)

Tzimmes (Carrots With Raisins)

4 - 6 servings1 h

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced into ½ inch rounds
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon sugar or 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ cup raisins
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Cook

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (4)

Frittole Dolci (Italian Cinnamon and Raisin Doughnuts)

About 2 dozen doughnuts1 h active + 4 h inactive

Ingredients

  • ½ cup raisins
  • 1½ cups warm whole milk
  • 1½ cups lukewarm water
  • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
  • ¼ cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoons grappa or Cognac
  • 3½ cups all-purpose flour
  • Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • Sunflower or other neutral oil for deep-frying

For the cinnamon sugar:

  • ¾cup sugar
  • ¼ cup cinnamon

Cook

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (5)

Italian Apple Fritters

about 16 fritters30 min

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 ½ cups milk or water
  • 4 Granny Smith apples peeled, cored and sliced crosswise into ½ inch pieces
  • Peanut or sunflower oil for deep-frying
  • 4 tart apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and sliced into ½-inch rings

For the cinnamon sugar:

  • 2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Cook

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (6)

Goose Cassoeula

4 - 6 servings3 h

Ingredients

  • 1 whole small goose or duck, deskinned, deboned and chopped into 2 inch cubes
  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt, divided
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 4 tablespoons olive olive oil, divided
  • 1 onion, peeled and chopped into ½ inch cubes
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped into ½ inch cubes
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped into ½ inch cubes
  • 1 head green cabbage
  • ½ cup red wine
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste

Cook

Recipes

1

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (7)

Latkes Topped With Stracchino (Creamy Italian Cheese)

About 201 h

Ingredients

  • 1 large yellow onion
  • 2 large russet potatoes, peeled
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • Vegetable or sunflower oil or any other neutral oil for deep-frying
  • 8 ounces stracchino cheese for serving

Cook

2

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (8)

Tzimmes (Carrots With Raisins)

4 - 6 servings1 h

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced into ½ inch rounds
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon sugar or 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ cup raisins
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Cook

3

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (9)

Frittole Dolci (Italian Cinnamon and Raisin Doughnuts)

About 2 dozen doughnuts1 h active + 4 h inactive

Ingredients

  • ½ cup raisins
  • 1½ cups warm whole milk
  • 1½ cups lukewarm water
  • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
  • ¼ cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoons grappa or Cognac
  • 3½ cups all-purpose flour
  • Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • Sunflower or other neutral oil for deep-frying

For the cinnamon sugar:

  • ¾cup sugar
  • ¼ cup cinnamon

Cook

4

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (10)

Italian Apple Fritters

about 16 fritters30 min

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 ½ cups milk or water
  • 4 Granny Smith apples peeled, cored and sliced crosswise into ½ inch pieces
  • Peanut or sunflower oil for deep-frying
  • 4 tart apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and sliced into ½-inch rings

For the cinnamon sugar:

  • 2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Cook

5

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (11)

Goose Cassoeula

4 - 6 servings3 h

Ingredients

  • 1 whole small goose or duck, deskinned, deboned and chopped into 2 inch cubes
  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt, divided
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 4 tablespoons olive olive oil, divided
  • 1 onion, peeled and chopped into ½ inch cubes
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped into ½ inch cubes
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped into ½ inch cubes
  • 1 head green cabbage
  • ½ cup red wine
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste

Cook

“I grew up in Milan. And, we didn't have any Jewish upbringing,” explains Lorenza Pintar, who now lives in Brooklyn. “It was my great grandparents that ended that.” They lived in Italy under Mussolini, who in late 1938 enacted the first of the Leggi Razziali, or Italy’s racial laws. Marriage between Italian Jews and non-Jews was outlawed, Jews were banned from educational institutions, and persecution was legalized in numerous other ways.

In order to protect themselves, Lorenza’s family ceased publicly practicing Judaism, but kept customs and traditions going in secret. On Fridays, Lorenza’s great grandmother Emma would polish candlesticks and move them close together, but not light candles in them. After Shabbat, she would separate the candlesticks. Her husband, Angelo, would lock himself in a room and pray alone. Lorenza’s mother Magdalena remembers hearing sounds through the walls as her grandfather prayed, unable to discern what he was saying.

Through the generations, traditions of secrecy were adopted and adapted in the family. Lorenza recalls her grandmother, Aurelia, lighting candles on Friday evenings, but not saying a blessing. Jewish foods, however, were a constant. “For us, it was all about food,” Lorenza explains. Special recipes would quietly appear on the family table at particular times.

On Friday nights, Emma, who passed away right before Lorenza was born, would make fish in a spicy tomato sauce laced with paprika. She also made cholent, always with brown eggs sliced on top. And the family never cooked lunch on Saturdays, keeping the Jewish custom of not working on the Sabbath. Instead, they ate rotisserie chicken or bread and cheese, Lorenza explains. And, pork wasn't part of their cooking. In the family, cassoeula, a Milanese cousin of French cassoulet, was made with goose instead.

As a child, Lorenza wanted to go to church on Christmas. “To me, it was exciting,” she says. “My grandmother was like: ‘No, we don’t go.’” Instead, during winter, likely sometime near Hanukkah, latkes, tzimmes, Italian fritters called frittole, and fried apples appeared on her family table alongside stracchino, a local cheese that Lorenza describes as denser than sour cream, but with the same tang. It was served, “and then the dish would just disappear,” Lorenza explains.

When Lorenza’s sister passed away a decade ago, the family started to explore their roots more deeply at the suggestion of a therapist. As they researched, they found their family name in Sicilian records dating back to the Inquisition. They also have Ashkenazi roots from Poland. A colleague of Lorenza suggested the family create a cookbook of their Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Italian recipes. Magdalena, who now also uses the name Yael, led the project with Lorenza translating the recipes for a small book called "Rebelot," a Milanese slang word for something that’s all mixed up or chaotic, but leads to revolution.

“This whole process was very healing for my mom,” she says. From it, Lorenza adds, “I understood how important it is to be rooted.”

Find more Hanukkah recipes in our holiday collection.

Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (12)

Recipes From This Family

Latkes Topped With Stracchino (Creamy Italian Cheese)Sides
Tzimmes (Carrots With Raisins)Sides
Frittole Dolci (Italian Cinnamon and Raisin Doughnuts)Desserts
Italian Apple FrittersQuick
Milanese Jewish Recipes that Survived Generations of Secrecy (2024)

FAQs

What was the Jewish ancestral diet? ›

The daily diet of the average ancient Israelite consisted mainly of bread, cooked grains and legumes. Bread was eaten with every meal. The bread eaten until the end of the Israelite monarchy was mostly made from barley flour. During the Second Temple era, bread made from wheat flour became predominant.

What do Ashkenazi Jews eat? ›

Under the influence of local culinary traditions, Jewish cuisine incorporated kosher sausages, salami, sauerkraut, potato salad, schnitzel, goulash, stuffed peppers, apple strudel and doughnuts with filling.

What is the Jewish favorite food? ›

The typical components of the traditional Jewish meal include gefilte fish, chicken soup with matzo balls (also called Kneidlach), brisket, roasted chicken, a potato dish such as kugel or latkes and tzimmes.

Which of the following foods was brought to America by Jewish immigrants? ›

Jews brought the dishes they knew from Europe to America, and some of them eventually transcended their roots to become genuinely American. A few prominent examples include bagels, pickles and rye bread.

What did Jews eat in Jesus' time? ›

The daily diet of the ordinary ancient Israelite was mainly one of bread, cooked grains, and legumes. Bread was eaten with every meal. Vegetables played a smaller, but significant role in the diet. Legumes and vegetables were typically eaten in stews.

How many meals a day did our ancestors eat? ›

Responsible fasting is a game-changing secret that many people have used to help maintain a healthy weight. It is a natural dietary consumption method that can lead to fat loss and countless other health benefits for healthy living.

What illnesses are Ashkenazi Jews prone to? ›

These disorders include cystic fibrosis, Canavan disease, familial dysautonomia, Tay-Sachs disease, Fanconi anemia, Niemann-Pick disease, Bloom syndrome, mucolipidosis type IV, and Gaucher disease, among others.

Why do Ashkenazi Jews live long? ›

Researchers found that among Ashkenazi Jews, those who survived past age 95 were much more likely than their peers to possess one of two similar mutations in the gene for insulinlike growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R).

How rare are Ashkenazi Jews? ›

Israeli demographer and statistician Sergio D. Pergola implied that Ashkenazim comprised 65–70% of Jews worldwide in 2000, while other estimates suggest more than 75%. As of 2013, the population was estimated to be between 10 million and 11.2 million.

Do Jews eat strawberries? ›

The strictly Orthodox Torah and Land Institute declared that strawberries grown in Israel were infested with miniscule insects and were therefore not kosher.

What do Jews put on their bagels? ›

Bagels and lox is one of the best Jewish deli favorites and usually consists of an open-faced or ring-shaped bread piece known as a bagel that is topped with thinly sliced red onions, cream cheese, briny capers, and lox. A lox bagel is typically eaten for breakfast and includes both a bagel and lox.

Do Jews believe in Jesus? ›

For Jews, the significance of Jesus must be in his life rather than his death, a life of faith in God. For Jews, not Jesus but God alone is Lord. Yet an increasing number of Jews are proud that Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew.

What was the original diet of the Bible? ›

At the time of the Bible, ancient Israel was famed for its wine, honey and pomegranates, along with its olive oil, which was used extensively both raw and for cooking the occasional meat and the more frequent stews of legumes like lentils and barley.

What did the Jews eat for 40 years? ›

Exodus states that the Israelites consumed the manna for 40 years, starting from the fifteenth day of the second month (Iyar 15), but that it then ceased to appear once they had reached a settled land, and once they had reached the borders of Canaan (inhabited by the Canaanites).

What was a typical meal in Jesus time? ›

Despite their significance, meals were quite simple and came only twice a day, usually at noon or early afternoon when workers came for a break, hungry like Esau. Bread, legumes, oil and dried or fresh fruit composed a typical meal. Bread, along with water, was considered an essential of life.

What food did God give the Israelites in the desert? ›

As the LORD commanded Moses, Aaron put the manna in front of the Testimony, that it might be kept. The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.

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