The Jewish Wedding Cookbook: Recipes for Your Spectacular Big Day

Finalist for the 2016 Gourmand World Cookbook Award. Category: Jewish Cooking.

You have a bride, you have a groom, you’ve chosen a venue, you’ve selected a gown, oh happy day! But everyone knows that no Jewish wedding is complete without food for the guests. Good food, and lots of it.

In the days before catering, when families and neighbors pitched in to make refreshments, all sorts of wedding traditions and recipes emerged in Jewish communities around the world. In Poland and Lithuania, a bride and groom were fed golden soup before being left alone together for the first time. Georgian Jews would bake the festive kabaluli bread in the days leading up to the nuptials. And in Morocco, Jews believed that sweets could cast a supernatural spell on a marriage.

In this book, readers will find a collection of wedding stories and delicacies, seasoned with dozens of traditional and modern recipes. Authors Nomi Abeliovich and Ofer Vardi met with established cooks, experienced bakers, and traditional and contemporary caterers, and collected the best recipes, treats, and ethnic dishes for the major milestones in a couple’s life: from matchmaking and engagement ceremonies, to the meeting of the families, to bachelorette and bachelor parties, to the wedding celebration itself, and even beyond, to the births of the children. These recipes can be prepared at home, for a wedding or for any other joyful celebration. Here’s wishing you love and happiness. Mazal tov!

Nomi Abeliovich, former architect and current gastronome, is a graduate of the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy and has been writing, editing and thinking primarily about food, but also about architecture and the connection between the two, since 2009. Ofer Vardi, publisher and editor-in-chief of LunchBox, is a journalist and gastronome and the bestselling author of Going Paprikash (2009), as well as a co-author of the bestseller Communal Dining: Stories and Recipes from the Kibbutz.