DURING THE SPANISH INQUISITION, CONVERSOS HAD TO PREPARE JEWISH FOOD IN SECRET. WE’RE STILL UNPACKING THE WAYS THAT HAS SHAPED CULINARY HISTORY.
CONFIDENTIAL KITCHEN
BY CAITLIN STALL-PAQUET
A PIECE OF LARD KEPT IN A COOL CORNER of the kitchen. A vegetarian dish prepared in tan- dem with a pork-rich analogue. A pot of Shabbat stew simmered ahead of time to allow for a hands- off meal later. Simple sights you might find in many a home kitchen — and also, sometimes, evidence of secret rebellion. It’s a collection of findings all cited during the Spanish Inquisition trials, which ran from the late fifteenth to the nineteenth cen- turies, peaking in the sixteenth. Food has a long history of getting mixed up with politics, and it was the weapon of choice for Catholics during this time: they used it to denounce the Jews and Mus- lims who had been forced by the state to convert to Christianity but secretly maintained their reli- gious practices. When Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II issued the Alhambra Decree (the edict ordering the expulsion of practising Jews) on March 31, 1492 , Jews were given a choice: be baptized or leave. Over the course of the next 300 some years, some- where between 200,000 and 600,000 converted.
40 SUMMER 2025
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