Virtual Program.  Register for link HERE.

This program examines the ways that the 20th century cookbook, The Way to a Man’s Heart: The Settlement Cook Book, became a beloved Jewish icon. Filled with non-kosher recipes, the cookbook has been called “unabashedly Jewish” and “a Jewish Joy of Cooking” by generations of reviewers and cooks, yet dismissed as Jewish “by association only” by some historians. Nevertheless, the heirloom quality of this book transcended generations leading to the perception of the book as a Jewish, albeit not Judaic, standard.  

Join Professor Nora L. Rubel as she traces the cookbook’s evolution across forty editions over several decades, through waves of immigration, shifting gender roles, upward mobility, suburbanization, and rapid changes in Jewish life. She argues that the book celebrates pluralism, allowing it to serve at once as a tool for Americanization, a repository of tradition, and a platform for culinary innovation. Ultimately, The Settlement Cook Book is a record of American Jewish women’s history, told through the food they made and the lives they led. A cultural biography of an iconic cookbook, this lively and inviting book shares an inclusive vision of American cuisine.

Nora Rubel is the Elizabeth Denio Professor, Co-Director of Jewish Studies, and Chair of the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester. 

Purchase the book here and a portion of the proceeds will be donated back to the local independent bookstore in the Berkshires.