My father Nirmal Chandra Kumar was a Gourmet. A connoisseur of good food. He liked to have good food cooked and invited others to enjoy. I don’t think he was really a gastronomic, and that he gorged food.
Here in his collection I find a small book, entitled the Jewish Cookery Book, edited by Ezra Joseph Gubbay and published by Mrs. H. Brooke and printed by East Bengal Press in Calcutta, published in 1922.
As per the inscription in the fly cover, 'pustini', the book had been handed down to Sallyanne and Barry by Sallyanne’s father, Ezra Gubbay.
The Jews of Calcutta had a long and colourful history. They settled here well over two hundred years ago. They came mainly from Aleppo and Baghdad. They were involved in various trading that included indigo, textile, and precious stones. The Gubbay family was from Baghdad.
This book is totally new to me. It contains several kosher Jewish Indian recipes, including some I’ve never heard of before. Kosher meaning food which is sold, cooked, or eaten satisfying the requirements of Jewish law. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a deeper look at Jewish Indian cuisine. I pored over the pages of the cookbook, taking in all of the dishes, exotic spices, and ingredients. Some of the recipes were familiar to me, others completely new.
In the Jewish house in Calcutta there were two separate cooking areas, one for meat and one for dairy. All the kitchen help were Muslims. All the housekeeping staff and other help were Hindus. The person in charge of meal planning used to be a Jew. The head chef had some knowledge of European cooking, so the menu consisted of both European types of cooking as well as Indian Jewish cooking.If you stole someone else’s chef, it was ‘an act of war!’ The two families would never speak to each other again. Chefs were sacred.
I did some research on the history of Indian Jews. Rather than one mass migration, Jewish groups have settled in India at different times throughout the centuries. The Cochin Jews are the most ancient group of Jews in India. They claim roots in India from the time of King Solomon, though it can only be historically verified that they resided in India after 70 CE. After the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, a wave of settlers landed in the ancient port of Cranganore. They moved to nearby Cochin in the late fifteenth century after the Portuguese invaded, and were welcomed there by the maharajah. An area called Jew Town was established, where the Cochin Jews lived in harmony with their Hindu neighbours. They became involved in trading pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and other spices.
The Bene Israel Jews believe that their ancestors were oil pressers in the Galilee, who fled by sea to escape religious persecution in the 2nd century B.C.E. Legend says that seven Jewish couples survived a shipwreck on the Konkan Coast of India, on the shores of Kolaba; those seven couples are said to be the ancestors of modern day Bene Israel Jews. The shipwrecked Jews washed up near a village called Navgaon; all of their belongings were lost at sea. The survivors settled in Navgaon and started working in agriculture and oil pressing. Over the centuries, the descendants of the Bene Israel continued to carry on key Jewish traditions, including keeping kosher, circumcision, and observing Shabbat. The small group of Jews was “rediscovered” in the 18th century by traders from Baghdad, Iraq.
The Baghdadi Jews settled in India. Not all Baghdadi Jews are from Iraq; the Baghdadi name is also used to encompass immigrants from Iran, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Around 250 years ago, a wave of Jews emigrated from these countries to India, settling in Surat and later Bombay and Calcutta. Baghdadi Jews established a trading network from Syria and Baghdad and Bombay to Calcutta, stretching all the way to Japan and Hong Kong. They quickly found success in trading, and the community thrived.
Many Baghdadi Jews made their home in Calcutta, where Barry Scott’s father-in-law Ezra Joseph Gubbay lived—and where the Jewish Cookery Book was written. Ezra, like many Baghdadi Jews, was involved in various trading that included indigo, textiles, and precious stones.
Sadly, the population of Jews in India is now dwindling. After World War II, the rise of Indian nationalism made things tense for Jews in India, who were closely associated with Great Britain. The Jews began leaving in the 1940′s, emigrating from India to Israel, the U.S. and England. A few elderly Jews stayed behind, but that population is slowly disappearing. In Calcutta, a once thriving community of 5,000 Jews is now on the verge of extinction.
The Jews may have left India, but their culinary traditions live on. Like other Jewish communities around the globe, Indian Jews have adapted the regional cuisine of their adopted country to make it kosher. The unique spices of the region are used freely in Indian Jewish recipes, as are regional kosher substitutes (like using coconut milk as a pareve alternative to milk or cream). Lamb (referred to in the cookbook as “mutton”) is used instead of beef as a red meat source; this is because the Hindus have a sacred respect for cows, and the Indian Jews generally respected this restriction. By exploring these recipes today and savouring these very special Indian flavours we can imagine what it was like to enjoy a Jewish meal.