To add to the Jewish food history -
With plenty of herbs and sometimes generous use of spices, Sephardic Jewish cooking is aromatic. They use a lot of lemon, garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, cumin with turmeric and more. Sephardic Jews are known for their love of cooking vegetables, from salads to vegetables stuffed with fragrant meat and rice, and pies or Burekas which often have feta cheese, spinach, or potato fillings. Sephardic Jews from Morocco and other North African countries enjoy cumin, ginger, and saffron & chilies. Jewish cooks from the eastern end of the Mediterranean have adapted their food and cooking as well and make heavy use of cinnamon in their cooking, so much that they use it as a savory accent for meat dishes The kebabs, pilafs and dolmades (stuffed vegetables) of Turkish Jewish cooking are still some of the most recognizable Sephardic dishes. Fruits, vegetables, spices, and grains were plentiful in the Mediterranean climate, and thus plant foods figured heavily into Sephardic Jewish cooking.
Ashkenazi cooks prefer seasonings rather than a large number of herbs and spices. Sweet and sour stews of meat and vegetables are another form of Jewish cooking in the Ashkenazi style. To create the sweet and sour effect, cooks use sugar, honey, or raisins tempered with vinegar or lemon juice. They employ this flavoring technique for soups and meatless dishes as well. This is a sweeter Jewish form of cooking.
Because the Ashkenazi emigrated to the United States in such vast numbers, most people think of Ashkenazi cooking as all Jewish cooking. Here we find the knishes, the kugels, the tsimmes, the cholent. But it must be remembered that Jewish people cooked the food of the country they lived in, their only alteration a respect for kosher laws.
"The Israeli table is composed of all the dishes from around the globe where Jews have been and still are. New ways of preparing old recipes combined with the ability to adopt new ingredients to old dishes, alters the dish for contemporary Israel. To these cooking styles and more, Jews from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen etc., have each made unique contributions to the national table. All Arabic countries have more or less the same dishes only sometimes different names and adding this or that herb or spice. It has such an influence on Israeli table that even the original names stayed the same." Elinoar Moore
This information was found on
www.inmamaskitchen.com which I have now bookmarked because of the amazing information and recipes on the site. Bill you might take a look - it's interesting food history.