TURCOS eThese savory-sweet turnovers were originally eaten on Sukkot; hailing from Portugal, they’re now pop- ular in South Texas.
they’re made in the Sephardic diaspora. “In fact, most of the time, the process is more a way to identify the converso family than the food itself.” That adaptability became only more relevant as conver- sos , expelled from Spain, boarded ships headed for Latin America, becoming the first wave of Jewish immigrants in the New World. Proof of their passage can still be tast- ed in dishes that survived undercover for centuries, like a Mexican version of the Iberian meatball soup, sopa de al- bóndigas, inflected with local herbs and spices in the broth. As with the coded communication back in Spain, these foods were legible to those in the know. “Those that par- ticipate in the secret … will feel that they are members of a
Jawhara Piñer dug up instances of Christians using the culi- nary preference in mockery, namely comparing Jewish dark skin to the eggplant’s exterior. Maintaining secrecy requires adaptability; for conversos this meant tweaking recipes to incorporate local ingredi- ents. These shifts were a survival mechanism of sorts, en- suring that certain traditions would continue while also blending into the surrounding culinary landscape. Chang- ing ingredients meant that what defined certain Jewish foods as Jewish was often more about how they were pre- pared than what they were made with: “The process is real- ly important,” Jawhara Piñer says of dishes like adafina — of which there are countless versions, depending on where
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