We'll be joined by food historian and Community Creative Fellow Sara Gardner for Dipping into Diaspora: The Many Stories and Flavors of Sephardic Charoset. A staple of the Passover table, it can be easy to overlook charoset as just the Ashkenazi sweet mix of fruits, nuts, and wine. But in looking at the wide variety of charoset recipes from across the Sephardic diaspora, it becomes clear that this seder symbol is so much more than a fruity metaphor for bricks and mortar: it's edible history. Join Sara Gardner in this cooking and history workshop to explore the vibrant variety of charoset recipes from across the Sephardic diaspora, as well as the global Jewish stories they represent. Together we will dive into these Sephardic stories, try your hand at a sampling of charosets, and reflect on the power of food to represent our evolving Jewish identities.
Sara Gardner
Sara M. Gardner is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota. Her work focuses on the culinary heritage and cultural identity of the Sephardic Jews. Previously, she served as the Collaborations Manager for the Jewish Arts Collaborative and the Associate Director for Young Adult Programs at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. From 2016-2017, Sara lived and researched medieval Sephardic culinary heritage in Spain as a Fulbright Graduate Research Scholar. She has presented her work at various international conferences, including the Modern Language Association, the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, and the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium, and has taught cooking classes across the Boston area and internationally. Sara is also a cooking instructor and published cookbook author; her first cookbook is entitled The Rosh Hashanah Seder Cookbook: Stories and Recipes from the Reform Jewish Community of Madrid (2018). When she’s not searching out medieval Sephardic documents in the archive or writing her dissertation, Sara loves to paint watercolors, FaceTime with her siblings, and to experiment with Jewish diasporic flavors in her kitchen.
This event is part of the Only Woman in the Room series, exploring the stories of trailblazing Jewish women.
In partnership with:
