Chickpeas & The Chosen Peeps
Judaism, Jewish culture, Jewish Cuisine, Living Jewishly, Jewish Learning July 10th, 2007
Many of you probably don’t know this but I’ve been a huge fan of the chickpea most of my life, especially in tasty dishes like apple curried chickpeas, hummus or in a pasta dish. Anyhow last night I learned a couple of very interesting facts about chickpeas and their relationship to Jews and Judaism.
For example, apparently chickpeas were such a prevalent food among the Sephardic Jews living during the times of the Inquisition, that members of the Spanish Inquisition considered their use in cooking to be a sign of Jewish cuisine. Therefore people (whether actually Jewish or not) who were caught making things like chickpea stew, were subject to arrest based on the grounds that cooking with chickpeas meant that you were probably Jewish.
Another interesting fact I learned last night was that chickpeas which are easily grown in abundance were therefore considered to be a sign of fertility. Also their round shape symbolized the cycles of life and the year and therefore foods containing chickpeas were (are?) commonly served at events like birthdays. In fact (and I did not know this until last night) apparently chickpeas area a traditional Rosh Hashanah food because they represent, a wish for a well-rounded year to come.
Anyhow, I thought it was interesting!
PS feel free to share your Jewish chickpea stories and/or facts if you got them.
Technorati tags: Jewish History, Jewish Culture, Jewish Cooking, Chickpeas, Sephardic Judaism, Sephardic Cooking, Spanish Inquisition
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July 10th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
i grew up calling them ‘garbanzo beans’… it took years before i finally realized that that’s actually the Spanish name
when i was in israel i used to call chickpeas “raw hhumus”. hhumus is good.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Yes hummus is good and to the best of my knowledge rarely if ever leads to carbon monoxide poisoning.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I have a Jewish chickpea story for you over at Ararat Scrolls: about how I re-discovered the chickpea about the same time that I discovered Judaism.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I wonder what they’d do if they popped by to taste the pig you were cooking outside your door and found you cooking with chickpeas … would they be down right confused!? I like how cooking pig was used as a way to ward off the bad guys, just like garlic is used for vampires