*View the video of this pro­gram here*

Think of your favorite Jew­ish food. Bab­ka? Knish? Or maybe it’s Gefilte Fish a la Ver­acruzana, Passover latkes with mole or matzah chi­laquiles? Across Latin Amer­i­ca, Jew­ish cui­sine has devel­oped and flour­ished, incor­po­rat­ing tra­di­tions from Jew­ish roots and local fla­vors. What goes into a cholent in Argenti­na? What is served on every table in Mex­i­co dur­ing Rosh Hashanah? That food is an inte­gral part of any com­mu­ni­ty is not news to Jews, but what are the dis­tinct qual­i­ties and influ­ences that make up Latin Amer­i­can Jew­ish cui­sine? Join Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, Natan Fund, and Jew­ish Food Soci­ety for a mouth­wa­ter­ing lunchtime con­ver­sa­tion with Spring 2020 Natan Notable Book win­ner, Ilan Sta­vans (The Sev­enth Heav­en: Trav­els Through Jew­ish Latin Amer­i­ca, Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh Press, 2019), and Mex­i­can chef, TV per­son­al­i­ty, cook­book author, edu­ca­tor, and food writer Pati Jinich as they dis­cuss culi­nary tra­di­tions and the dish­es that should be a part of your next Fri­day night din­ner. Pas­tra­mi tacos anyone?

Addi­tion­al events in this series:

https://​www​.jew​ish​book​coun​cil​.org/​e​v​e​n​t​s​/​a​n​t​i​s​e​m​i​t​i​s​m​-​i​n​-​l​a​t​i​n​-​a​m​erica

https://​www​.jew​ish​book​coun​cil​.org/​e​v​e​n​t​s​/​j​e​w​s​-​a​n​d​-​l​a​t​i​n​o​s​-​i​m​m​i​g​r​a​n​t​s​-​a​c​r​o​s​s​-​a​-​c​e​ntury

Speak­ers

Inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned essay­ist, trans­la­tor, edi­tor, and teacher, Ilan Sta­vans is Lewis-Sebring Pro­fes­sor of Human­i­ties, Latin Amer­i­can and Lati­no Cul­ture at Amherst Col­lege, the pub­lish­er of Rest­less Books, and the host of the NPR pod­cast In Con­trast. His many books include The Oxford Book of Jew­ish Sto­ries(1998), the mem­oir On Bor­rowed Words (2002), Spang­lish: The Mak­ing of a New Amer­i­can Lan­guage(2003), the three-vol­ume set of Isaac Bashe­vis Singer: The Col­lect­ed Sto­ries (2004), The Schock­en Book of Mod­ern Sephardic Lit­er­a­ture (2008), The Nor­ton Anthol­o­gy of Lati­no Lit­er­a­ture (2011), Quixote: The Nov­el and the World (2015), The Sev­enth Heav­en: Trav­els through Jew­ish Latin Amer­i­ca (2019), and How Yid­dish Changed Amer­i­ca and How Amer­i­ca Changed Yid­dish (2020). The recip­i­ent of numer­ous prizes, his work, trans­lat­ed into fif­teen lan­guages, has been adapt­ed into film, TV, the­ater, and radio.

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Pati Jinich is the host of Pati’s Mex­i­can Table, now in its ninth sea­son. Named one of the ​“100 Great­est Cooks of All-Time” by Epi­cu­ri­ous and Bon Appétit, she has won a Gra­cie Award for her tele­vi­sion work and is a three-time Emmy and IACP Award nom­i­nee. She is the res­i­dent chef of the Mex­i­can Cul­tur­al Insti­tute and has appeared on NPR’s Splen­did Table and All Things Con­sid­ered, NBC’s Today, CBS’s The Talk, ABC’s Good Morn­ing Amer­i­ca, and Food Net­work. Born and raised in Mex­i­co City, she lives in Chevy Chase, Mary­land, with her hus­band and three boys. 

Part­ners

Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that edu­cates and enrich­es the com­mu­ni­ty through Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture. Found­ed in 1944, Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is the longest-run­n­ing orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed exclu­sive­ly to the sup­port and cel­e­bra­tion of Jew­ish literature.

Natan Fund is a giv­ing cir­cle — a grant­mak­ing foun­da­tion where mem­bers pool their char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions, set the group’s phil­an­thropic strat­e­gy and agen­da, and col­lec­tive­ly award grants to emerg­ing ini­tia­tives, work­ing active­ly with their lead­ers to help them grow. 

Jew­ish Food Soci­ety is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that works to pre­serve, cel­e­brate, and revi­tal­ize Jew­ish culi­nary her­itage. Through com­mu­ni­ty events and a vibrant dig­i­tal recipe archive, we aim to pro­vide a deep­er con­nec­tion to Jew­ish life.