How do you honour an aging parent’s legacy in a way that feels most meaningful? And when that parent’s love language was cooking up unforgettable family meals, what better tribute than a cookbook?
When Elana Benjamin’s mum turned 75 last year, collating her recipes became a perfect way not only to safeguard treasured memories but to share those beloved dishes with others, turning each recipe into a piece of living history.
“I had a moment where I thought: if god forbid something happened to her tomorrow, all her recipes would be lost and I’d have no idea how to make most of them,” Benjamin tells Indian Link on why she decided to write Indian-Jewish Food: Recipes and Stories from the Backstreets of Bondi.
Sydney-based Elana Benjamin is a Jewish-Australian writer of Indian-Iraqi heritage. Her parents and grandparents were part of Bombay’s Baghdadi-Jewish community before they moved to Bondi in Sydney. Hence, cooking Indian-Jewish cuisine was a common feature.
Indian-Jewish cuisine, she says, is delicious, and while she always wanted to learn to cook it, she never got to it. “My mother cooked them for us, so I never bothered to learn,” she confesses.
Some of the beloved dishes that marked countless family meals and celebrations include tangy chittarnee, savoury chakla bakla, and sweet kakas.
Growing up, it became clear to her that the story of India’s Jews is little-known.
“Most people don’t know that India was home to three Jewish communities (the Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews and the Baghdadis from Iraq),” the author shares, adding, “And that Baghdadi Jews from India began arriving in Australia (in the 1940s) well before other Indians, while the White Australia Policy was still in force.”
So, when it dawned on her that she should document the recipes, it was not just to honour her roots but also a way to raise awareness of the existence of India’s Baghdadi Jews. “In the words of the late food historian Gil Marks, I wanted to ‘spread the culinary wealth’,” Benjamin adds.
Nostalgia on a plate
In her book, Indian-Jewish Food: Recipes and Stories from the Backstreets of Bondi, Benjamin includes five sections – sides, vegetarian, fish and chicken, meat, and sweet. Naturally, she could not use all the dishes in this book, but instead narrowed down the list to most favourites.
“I asked family members – especially my mother and my eldest aunt (my father’s sister), who is now 92 – for instructions on how to make particular dishes,” Benjamin says. She also consulted other members of Sydney’s Baghdadi Jewish community and referred to some cookbooks.
“There’s no other cookbook of Indian-Jewish food which has photos accompanying each recipe,” she notes, explaining why her cookbook is different.
In order to get the dishes right for her readers, Benjamin had to experiment with quantities.
“Many Indian Jews who immigrated to Australia are no longer alive, and the rest are rapidly ageing. Most of the recipes weren’t written down and the women tend to store the recipes in their heads; they cook by feel, intuition and tasting as they go.”
The Baghdadi Jews in India fused Iraqi flavours with Indian spices. When asked to highlight a dish that captures the unique blend of Indian and Iraqi flavours in her book, Elana Benjamin points to hamim. “The word hamim is Arabic for ‘intense heat‘. It is a slow-cooked chicken and rice dish that the Iraqi Jews brought with them to India, but it has evolved to include many Indian spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, garam masala and fresh ginger.”
Forgotten but not lost
The journey of India’s Baghdadi Jewish cuisine to the bustling streets of Bondi, is a fascinating one. Beginning in the late 1940s, Baghdadi Jews—mostly from Bombay and Calcutta—arrived in Sydney, gravitating toward Bondi, where Sydney’s Ashkenazi Jewish community was well established.
An essential piece of this story is Eze Moses’ legendary spice shop on Brighton Boulevard in Bondi, which became a lifeline for Indian migrants from all over Sydney.
“Food is a connection to home,” says Benjamin, who beautifully records memories of Moses’ shop in her book. “And it was vital for the new arrivals to be able to cook the familiar food of home.”
Indian ingredients like lentils, basmati rice, and aromatic spices were available only at Moses’ store, turning his shop into a beloved cornerstone for both the Jewish and Indian communities.
During her childhood, Benjamin’s most special memory was visiting her nanna Hannah’s Bondi apartment on Saturday evenings. “She always cooked Indian-Jewish food,” Benjamin remembers. “And we were exposed to Indian sweets like jalebi and gulab jamun and kulfi.”
Growing up, she experienced not only a fusion of foods but also of language.
“My mother always referred to fresh coriander by its Marathi name khotmir. And she called many of her spices by their Hindi names e.g. dhaniya and jeera (which she pronounced as ‘zeera’). There were foods we called by their Hebrew name, such as the sufganiyot (jam doughnuts) we ate to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Hanukah. So, it was very much a melting pot of food and language.”
Elana Benjamin’s book is a treasure trove of such anecdotes. Through this cookbook, the author wishes to keep the beloved dishes alive and hopes that they bring joy to readers and their homes.
“The cookbook is an opportunity to share the story of India’s Baghdadi Jews – but through food, which I think has the potential to reach a different audience than say, a book or a lecture about the history and culture of India’s Jews,” she concludes.
