Benedetta Jasmine Guetta, an Italian food writer and photographer. She was born in Milan, but she lives in Santa Monica, California. In 2009, she cofounded a website called Labna, the only Jewish/Kosher cooking blog in Italy, specializing in Italian and Jewish cuisine.
Since then, she has been spreading the word about the marvels of Italian Jewish food in Italy and abroad, teaching the recipes of the cuisine to a growing number of people in cooking schools, synagogues, and community centers, among other institutions. Her work has been featured in numerous news outlets in Italy and abroad, including the Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Elle à Table, Saveur, and Tablet.
Benedetta has previously coauthored two cookbooks in Italian, and Cooking alla Giudia is her first English-language cookbook. Benedetta also owns a small coffee shop in Santa Monica, called Café Lovi, specializing in sandwiches made with challah bread.
Learn more about Benedetta (https://www.labna.it/en) .
Learn more about The Passionistas Project (https://www.thepassionistasproject.com/passionistaspodcast) .
See the show notes here (https://www.thepassionistasproject.com/savoring-the-melting-pot-unearthing-the-delicious-tapestry-of-jewish-italian-cuisine) .
Hi we’re sisters Amy and Nancy Harrington the founders of the passionistas project podcast where we give women a platform to tell their own unfiltered stories on every episode we discuss the unique ways in which each woman is following her passions talk about how she defines success and
Explore her path to breaking down the barriers that women too often face today we’re talking with benedetta Jasmine geta an Italian food writer and photographer she was born in Milan but lives in Santa mon California in 2009 she co-founded the website labna the only Jewish kosher cooking blog in Italy specializing in
Italian and Jewish Cuisine since then she’s been spreading the word about the marvels of Italian Jewish food in Italy and abroad teaching the recipes of the cuisine to a growing number of people in cooking schools synagogues and community centers among other institutions her work has been featured
In numerous news outlets in Italy and abroad including the Washington Post Cosmopolitan lbla saver and tablet benetta has previously co-authored two cookbooks in Italian and cooking allaha Juda is her first English language cookbook benedetta also owns a small coffee shop in Santa Monica California called Cafe Loi specializing in
Sandwiches made with hollow bread so please welcome benedetta Jasmine geta hi thank you for having me today we are so excited to talk to you about this we love cooking we love Jewish Heritage we love Italian Heritage and so this is just the perfect interview for us what
Are you most passionate about well I guess that’s an easy one that’s a really easy one the thing I’m most passionate about is definitely cooking so I have many passions I like to think that most people have many passions at the end of the day life is long and you get to you
Know cherish and get passion about many things but definitely the one thing that has been a constant in my life is cooking so when did that passion start have you been fascinated with cooking since you were a little girl so I have a I have a mother that cooks very well uh
I want to say most Italians probably would say the same so I don’t think that makes me unique but uh so I’ve always looked up to her and I’ve you know seen her cooking however she is also a stay-at-home mom so for her the kitchen was pretty much her territory and her
Kingdom so it was always a bit of a not really a conflict but a bit of a you know um a push and pull situation where I wanted to find space for myself in her kitchen and she was like yeah no this is my place you can look uh and perhaps you
Know have small tasks but you will not really be allowed in the kitchen so I had to wait virally until I moved out of my own parents’ home to really be able to um to pursue my interest for cooking and then I’ve done it you know every
Minute I had in all of my spare time you know whenever I had the chance ever since so I’ve I’ve seen it happening all over my childhood but really on the kitchen I had to wait until I moved out but you didn’t um start doing cooking as
A career for a while you initially started studied literature and worked in digital marketing so tell us a little bit about that career and then what inspired you to make the switch Yeah I think like you mentioned the fact that you know you you focus on women on these
Um um interviews and I think it’s important especially for women to be able and maybe it’s a luxury at some point in life to figure what is your true passion because I was doing I’ve been working for over 10 years as a marketing specialist and I knew that I
Was doing a good job I mean I’m a diligent student and I’m a diligent performer of any task that you’re going to throw at me so I was like I can do this job I’ll do it well um it works it pays the bills and it gives me some
Satisfaction yet it didn’t make my heart skip a bit it didn’t make my eyes shine um and I knew what I really like to do because as soon as I got home from work I would go ahead and do something else which was my blog um and that
Really made me happy um it it gave more meaning to my life than my daytime job so as soon as I was able to sort of afford the risk of uh taking some off my other job um I tried to turn my real passion into a job um that took a while
And I think it took more than anything a big lip of Faith um but that was probably the most important thing I’ve done for myself in my life because I could have happily continued to do what I was doing but that wouldn’t have really fulfilled me um as much so how
Did you start the blog and what is the blog so the blog actually started in 2009 and I I like to joke and say it’s been my longest lasting relationship uh more than any boyfriend or anything else in life um so it’s been a while and uh it started off actually
Not even out of my own intention but from the intention of my uh best friend Manuel he was teaching cooking classes and I was tagging along because I really liked cooking so I was looking for every possible chance to cook um and so as he was teaching cooking classes we I was
Assisting him and we were recording the recipes that we were teaching so that the people that came along to one of our classes could just have um a place to find those recipes because in my experience every time you give somebody a recipe on a piece of paper it just
Gets terribly lost it never ever makes it home so so we started recording our recipes and we didn’t really know what people were interested in um in particular we were teaching our c cooking classes to the Jewish community in Italy um so it was a mix of things
But we never really wanted intentionally to focus on Jewish food um however over the years we found that there was in Italy a growing interest towards kosher and Jewish Cuisine um mostly because Italy has a very small Jewish Community there’s about 35,000 Jews uh in the entirety of the country and there’s a
Lot of curiosity towards the Jewish world because as a you know as a Christian u i mean Italy is a Christian State and so most people are just you know belong to another religion and they could just go their whole life without ever meeting a Jew so we found ourselves
Online as the spoke people of the Jews in Italy in a way so we were not planning on writing about Jewish stuff but you know the Jewish holidays came along and we were telling people how we celebrated the Jewish New Year and and there was was so much curiosity it was
Like oh do you guys have another New Year like do you do you celebrate the other one and this one and like do you you know in Italy you eat lentils for New Year and they’re like do you eat lentils and we were like nope um it’s a
Jewish thing we eat other food that have other meanings so as that happened we started to stir our content more towards the Jewish um sort of field mostly because like I said because that was the demand uh and it’s been very satisfying and fulfilling because there’s so much
Like I said curiosity um towards the Jewish culture and it’s been a a honor really to to be able to answer that Curiosity so describe the intersection of Italian and Jewish Cuisine so that people can understand it and and why was that is that so appealing to you uh
First of all I just wanted to say I really appreciated what you said at the beginning you know that these are two really appealing cultures everybody loves Italian food everybody loves Jewish food um if you could have two grandmas those are the two grandmas you would want to have right you would have
You want to have a Jewish grandma and an Italian Grandma I always like to say so um what is interesting about Jewish Italian food um however the way I have tried to present it and explain it is that it’s not a fusion Cuisine like don’t imagine you know matah balls
Spaghetti I’m just making it out um what is interesting about it is and that most people don’t know is that Italy has a really old Jewish um culture um Jews have lived in Italy since the Republican days so um very very many um centuries ago and uh the fact that we
Have had this very ancient culture has um per has allowed the Jewish Italian um Community to grow and evolve in different ways from all of the other communities that we generally think of when we think of Jewish culture or Jewish food um in America mostly due to
The fact that the vast majority of the Jewish population is of Ashkenazi origin we tend to associate Jewish culture and Jewish food in particular to the ashkanazi um influence so people would think again about matab balls or they would think about theil fish I don’t know all of those things black and white
Cookies um while the Italian Jewish Italian culture is an entire other thing like on my table you would never find matab balls they’re not a thing um so I tried to present a different way of being Jewish in a way which is the Jewish Italian way um and it’s something
That goes through every aspect of life it um reflects in the cuisine most visibly but it also reflects for example in the way we pray our prayers and songs are different so uh it’s a very specific and unique niche um or identity within the Jewish identity so when it comes to
Food uh the question was what do I call Jewish Italian food when I started writing my book my editor was like can we narrow it down because I had like 400 recipes I wanted in the book and she reminded me that the book would have
Been tiny too thick if I tried to put 400 recipes in it so I tried to answer this really sort of fundamental question of what is Jewish Italian food and I eventually went down with two really um substantial sort of Trends one is the food that is historically Italian Jewish
So food that we attribute to the Jews as the creators or the inventor of of that specific food or sometimes even that specific ingredient so where there’s like some sort of a philological approach and we can see that the food has a specific Jewish identity within
The Italian context um and then I tried to also give some space to the way the Jews have evolved Italian food to meet their needs and standards because obviously being Jewish comes with a number of rules we have to follow about the way we eat so um the prescriptions
Of um eating koser have also in a way changed the way somebody in Italy eats as the Jew versus the way somebody eats in Italy as a regular Italian so these were the two aspects that I tried to record in the book and uh and it’s it’s been very fascinating because it’s a
Very small uh but interesting issue that people don’t really know about when I moved to the US and I started telling people that I was writing this book there was just so much I don’t want to call it ignorance because it’s wrong but there was just so much unawareness of
The existence of my culture people were like oh are there Jews in Italy and I was like yeah here’s one um and and the ones that had accidentally you know been on a tour of Rome and probably walked through the ghetto and knew that there are Jews in Italy they still knew
Nothing about our culture and nothing about the way we eat so I really felt that there was an opportunity to present um our story toide Their audience in addition the fact that we are such a tiny Community um has somehow given me a certain amount of anxiety because a lot of the traditional
Recipes and stories that have been there for centuries are somehow on the verge of getting lost uh because like I said the numbers are shrinking the community is more people many just don’t care they they don’t have such a strong connection to their religion so I also felt it was a tremendous
Opportunity to be able to present the Jewish Italian culture to the US in particular because here there is an audience there are people that care and so there is a chance that all of these stories and recipes um are GNA you know reach a wider audience and live on um
Better than they would have in the sort of shrinking uh Italian environment wow yeah it’s a very um powerful book I was surprised how moving it was to uh to read it because one of the things I love but what you did is you give the history
Of Judaism in Italy which I think is beautiful the Jewish people in Italy you also talk about the food regionally and the communities regionally which I think is really fascinating and I think people think of sometimes just kind of generalize a culture like oh Italians all eat spaghetti and meatballs like you
Were saying earlier but northern Italians eat different food than Southern Italians so then to add into that what the Jewish Community eats in Northern Italy versus in southern Italy I think you did beautifully and in each case you also talk about the history of
That area so um so we you learn a lot Beyond just the recipes themselves so talk about writing the historical elements of the book too what kind of research did you do to do that um so first of all I’m very glad that somebody appreciates the effort that went into
That uh when I was narrowing down the famous 400 recipes that I had at the beginning another one of my concerns was to give a fair amount of representation uh to every part of the country um specifically because like you noted Italy has a very fragmented territory um
It’s been historically fragmented at all times um and so every area of Italy every region would have its own very specific um you know first of all weather climate um ingredients and therefore flavors uh and that applies to Italian food at large just as much as it
Applies to um the Jewish uh specific aspects of food um in particular one of the one of the reasons why I like connecting the geography to the history um is that it’s hard to really understand food uh unless you appreciate the context in which it developed uh both historically and geograph
Geographically um so whenever I have a chance I like to give things some sort of a frame um in addition to that the other reason why I decided to sort of provide a bit of context again was that people are very curious of Italy um there’s always a great interest in Italy
As a country and but it tends to be always done with a very broad brush like you said it’s spaghetti and pizza um and there isn’t usually as much depth um when when it comes to um our geography and our history so I try to give some
You know to shed a bit of light uh on those topics now in terms of to answer your question in terms of research um history in a way is easy to research especially if you just need to provide a bit of context it doesn’t take a huge
Amount of Genius but what I felt was valuable in what I did in preparation for the book was I went and visited a lot of uh Jewish communities and people all around the peninsula um and I I really tried to collect more of their firsthand experience of you know being Jewish
Wherever is it that they lived and that really speaks um their food speaks about their land very often so for example if you visit U Bard my region uh you would find that there are many dishes featuring pumpkin um and that’s because it was the Jews who originally um really
Uh started to promote pumpkin as an ingredient in the region and it’s just a region where it geographically grows easily it’s easier for It just fits the territory um and so you would find all of these Jewish dishes with pumpkin that you wouldn’t find in southern Italy um
By the same token for example in Venice uh Venice was so close to um northern Europe to the German and the Austrian influence that you would find the number of Jewish dishes with goo because the Germans were used to farming gese and so the Jews of Italy took from the German
Jews the habit of cooking with these ingredients so wherever you go you can really see how the um territory on one hand has influenced the way people e and on the other hand how the history has influenced it because like I said for example in the case of the goose it was
The fact that so many German Jews were moving towards the peninsula in the Middle Ages that we started to cook with those ingredients um or by the same token again um another good example would be the usage of almonds there were all the Portuguese Jews that had to
Leave Spain and Portugal in 1492 and so those Jews brought with them ingredients that other way we wouldn’t have cooked with so you can just eat the food and it’s great but think that placing it in context just gives it more um more interest it’s just so fascinating and
Just something that I think most people really don’t even think about you know I know I know we recently just discovered that our ancestry goes back to to the Jewish people and we grew up our entire lives being told we were Italian you know our our mother’s family was Italian
We know the village where they come from they’ve lived there for centuries but we just recently found out that their name was sacko but it was originally e sacko which is Isaac and that and and so it’s like it’s kind of mind-blowing and it’s it’s something that like well of course
It makes sense historically when you think about it that yes there were Jewish people in Italy hundreds and thousands of years ago but it’s it’s fascinating to learn about it um so is there a story you said you traveled around talking to all these different women in your travels is there a story
That sort of sticks out as one that you really remember most fondly or had the most impact on you sure uh that’s an easy one the one that had the most impact on me and actually the reason why I eventually in the back of my mind at
Least decided to make this into a book um was a visit that I did to the Jewish community of Venice um so the Jewish community of Venice is very small there’s like 400 Jewels there more or less give or take um average age immed millionair uh don’t quote me hopefully
They don’t listen but yeah um not in great shape um in many ways so but they do have very nice Traditions one of which is uh for the Jewish holiday of Passover they get together before the holiday and they uh bake um kosher for Passover cookies for the whole community
So the community gathers the women work uh the rabbi supervises um and then the goodies are distributed um within the community so of course I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to go learn all of these recipes that they make for this Jewish holiday they bake like five different
Type of cookies and they’ve been baking them for centuries so I went there and I spent the day with them and I had a great time I made the cookies I ate the cookies and you could see that there were all of these older ladies um they
Knew that I have a website this was way before I had I wrote the book but I was collecting information and but they knew that I had a website and I was taking taking pictures and it was very endearing because they were like oh it’s so great that you’re recording these
Recipes we can’t wait for the world to see them because you know they’re on the internet and once they’re on the internet everyone will know about them and I was like damn I mean I don’t want to tell them that it’s just gonna be like probably a few thousand readers um
Because they just had this really idea this idea that really I would give them a window um on the world that their recipes would you know be passed on for potentially a really wide audience for very many generations so and and it’s true in a way that those
Recipes don’t I don’t think that those recipes have a really long future ahead unless it’s through what I can do for them like through the service that I can do to their Community to have those recipes um live on and reach wi Their audience so I felt invested of these
Sort of responsibilities from this grandma that I would take the recipes to the world and again the world was a bit ambitious it’s not really the world but they crossed the ocean which is I guess further than they would have ever um made it if they stayed in Venice so
That’s I guess progress well and that’s amazing I mean think about that think about getting a thousand people to know about those recipes is huge the oral tradition of passing them down from gen generation to generation didn’t impact that many people at a time so the work I
Guess it’s progress yeah it’s so incredible so talk about how you do get out and share this information with people because you said you do a lot of speaking and temples and different places so how does how do you book those events and everything I do so since the
Book came out uh especially I mean I always did it but also since the book came out I’ve been going around teaching to virtually anyone who invites me um I’m I’m very available so um I guess I’ve visited either in person or online uh a ridiculous number of Jewish
Communities uh all around the US in Italy I used to teach mostly to you know the communities Within Reach in Italy but um the US is obviously a much wider scene so also through the help of the Jewish book Council which is a great Association um I have presented or
Cooked along or done demos or you know whatever other format um in a number of places um it did help that the book last like a few months ago one the Jew the National Jewish book award so that that beside being a you know a great an
Exciting thing has um given some uh more attention to the topic which has allowed me to again reach wider audience um I’ve always felt that it was a bit of a mission to to Really educate on on on the topic of Jewish Italian food so the
Fact that there is interest and the fact that there is demand just means the world to me like literally every time somebody reaches out and says hey would you like to do that I’m like yes don’t tell me anything else just tell me where and when H I’ll be there it’s great and
So you’re so entrenched in Italian culture but you move out of Italy and go to the US so what Drew you to the US and what specifically Drew you to California now so I’ve actually moved out of Italy much earlier than when I moved to the US in that I
Have lived in Germany and in Israel before um I love Italy uh I love our culture yet I’ve always been eager to expand my um I guess or Horizons as they say so I’ve lived abroad ever since I was I think 18 um I and that has been very enriching I
I just love the fact that um I’ve I’ve had the privilege to live in so many different places um however the re so I eventually moved let’s do it like that I eventually moved to the US for love um because my partner um lives here uh um we we lived in
Israel together for a year and then we um moved to the US mostly because his job takes him here um and he has a daughter so I committed to living in California for the next five years until his daughter goes to college uh I didn’t choose California and I don’t mean to be
Ungrateful it’s it’s lovely uh but I’m not sure it would have been my number one choice um so I can’t really own it as much but but it’s but it’s as good as it could be um and I must say over the years it has grown on me um there’s
Still many things that are difficult for a European I want to say um one of them is traffic and the fact that everything is just so fire um but um but it’s been a very enriching experience and I feel as time goes by I grow more and more
Californian so I think that by the time we will probably move out in five years I will definitely miss this and do do you have do you have a place you’re going to go next um we well we have not really figured it out we thought we
Would live in Israel but for a number of reasons eventually Israel didn’t logistically work out for us that’s where my heart is um I I I just really loved living in Israel but uh but we will see we might end up Jeeping like we often say we do um between different
Places like uh a bit in Italy obviously because I’ve got my family and a bit here because my partner’s daughter will still be here most likely and and we’ll see so um so while you’re in California what inspires you to open Cafe Loi um I don’t know how to put this in a
Nice way but as a European you don’t have very many options to be legal in this country um so when I moved to the US I moved as a student um but you can’t study indefinitely despite the fact that I love studying um and so to make sure
That the United States Customs office or whatever they’re called The Border Patrol don’t kick me out um I had to pick a Visa and a very easy visa to work with is the investor visa so I fig which substantially says I’m going to put money and open a business um and I’ll
Contribute to the United United States by creating jobs and and employing people and things so that made sense for me I enjoy cooking now I’m more of a writer and a photographer and a historian that I’m an actual cook um I’m not trained as a chef I’m more of a geek
Um but I was lucky to meet the guy that works with me who is a chef his name is stofer um and together we opened my Cafe lobi which is this tiny um coffee shop that I have in Santa Monica um and again for a number of circumstances the place doesn’t really
Fit the whole kitchen it’s very tiny um we literally can barely move the two of us in the back of the shop so all we could fit in there was sandwich making and so I was like I know exactly what sandwiches I like I like hala hala is my
Favorite thing in the world I could eat Hala for breakfast lunch and dinner every day if I were to end up on a desert island that the one food I would like with me is Hala so so I told toofer we’re going to make sandwiches on Hala
And he never he didn’t even know what Hala is so I was like here try um and he was sold and then he told me you know what would make it even better we’re going to toast it with butter and I was like butter um and so he was right I
Mean Hala is amazing but if you toast it with butter it’s just even more amazing so that’s how we started making our s and that’s what we do um then obviously being Italian I was obsessed with coffee and I wanted a good coffee um and so we make coffee and sandwiches that’s what
We do it it’s been actually very cute how um the neighborhood and and people are supportive of small businesses I’ve never worked in a small business I’ve all of my previous jobs were big corporate jobs um and and it’s been very um endearing to see um how nice people
Actually are a lot of the time we imagine a world full of carens that scream at people and tell you how they want their cappuccinos uh but most of the time uh people are really nice and really appreciative uh so it’s been actually very fulfilling to have a job that has
Put me more in touch with uh the sort of end consumer uh that that has taught we’re Amy and Nancy Harrington and you’re listening to the passionistas project podcast in our interview with benedetta Jasmine Getta visit her food blog labna doit to get a copy of her new book cooking Allah
Juda connect with her on Instagram at labna and if you’re in Los Angeles have lunch at Cafe loie now here’s more of our interview with benedetta so you mentioned earlier that you a a photographer and food stylist as well right so can you tell us a little bit
About that um yeah sure so when I first started my blog in 2009 I want to say that those were really not actual jobs at least not in Italy it wasn’t a thing but if you liked creating content for the online world you ended up trying to
Be not only a cook cuz you had to cook but you also wanted to present your food uh in an appealing way and over I want to say over the last 10 15 years the standards have become of of a recipe uh really sort of seem to
Um involve not only you know the ingredients and the procedure of how a recipe is made but um the story that you can convey through the images at the end of the day if you’re not going to taste the food uh you want the um readers to
At least be able to imagine it h and the best service you can offer to the imagination is to provide images so so when I when I was uh you can see at the very in the early recipes of my blog the pictures were Dreadful um and
Then I had to teach myself how to take better pictures and how to style the food so it would be better because you might have an amazing stew stews are particularly nasty um you might have an amazing stew but it’s brown and it looks Dreadful so you want to give that stew a
Chance of appealing to people yet it can be rather un appealing unless you start you know sprinkling some parsley on top and putting it in a fancy bowl and having a prettier background than your kitchen marble so um So eventually all of these things ended up like I mean I I
Ended up growing into all of these fields just because I wanted to offer a reader better um a better experience of the food despite the fact that they wouldn’t be eating the food um so so I pretty much started to learn and as always when you enjoy something learning
Is easy um and and in that one of and it just brings to my mind the fact that we were talking about the fact that eventually I should pass on um the testimony to someone that you can interview next um there have been so many women especially um in this field
That have inspired me that I really look up to and that have brought me from you know my early days of my blog looking absolutely Dreadful to uh food photography that I appreciate and I’m proud of um today so that’s I guess one of the many things that not only my
Passion but the passion of other people have um allowed me to learn uh and to grow into along your journey what do you think has been your biggest professional Challenge and how have you overcome it that’s a very hard question that no one has ever asked asked me before um I
Think I’m thinking so the first thing that comes to mind is insecurity like a lot of times I think especially as a woman I don’t think that’s such a manly experience but especially as a woman you question yourself and you’re like oh am I good enough is this thing that I did good
Enough um is it finished really should it is it perfect should it be better could it be better better and so I find that in many ways I’m often the worst enemy of myself and I often stand in my own way so the biggest challenge has
Probably been to be able to say look we did what we could have we don’t know if it’s perfect and we don’t know if people will care there there’s a number of things that are not in our control but we just need to take the famous leap of
Faith that I mentioned at the beginning and let it go and see what happens because uh like many people tried to explain to me that um I had a teacher that used to say that um that good is better than perfect because perfect you’ll never really get
Uh but all of my life I’ve been striving for perfect and that’s where everything just does not happen like that’s where you get stuck so getting stuck in the search of perfection has often been very very bad um the book itself took me three years years to write and that’s not like the
Research it’s the writing the research was before and looking back had I been maybe a little bit less strict with myself and a bit more understanding it could have been done faster with most likely just the same results um so yeah just knowing when to stop and when to just let things take
The course that they should without being too afraid too insecure to you know too uncertain that would probably be helpful in general and as a lesson for the future given that there’s such a small Jewish community in Italy what was it like for you growing up as a young
Jewish girl in that country ah good question uh I love your question you both asked such thoughtful questions I’m sorry I just have to say because I get interviewed a lot but these are such thoughtful questions it really feels like you spend the time to you know research things um so
So the community is small but it’s tight and it’s concentrated in substantially very few cities I grew up in the second biggest city uh the the biggest city is Rome I grew up in Milan which is like I said the second biggest um and I was lucky to go to the Jewish
School from elementary school all the way to Middle School um so you know my parents felt that I would get a Jewish a proper Jewish Education then my parents also wanted me to see the world so in high school I went to public school um
So I feel like I was lucky to have the best of both worlds in that I had a strong Jewish Foundation to rely on um yet I was able to be you know a citizen of the world uh in the rest of the time the Jewish community of Italy in
Particular compared to that of the US is Um I don’t how to explain our way of being Jewish is more black and white than things are here uh when I moved to the US I was very confused because there are just so many different ways of being Jewish here you can be a bit
Conservative and a bit modern and a bit reform and I mean that being Jewish here has just so many flavors and sauces uh in Italy there is just one way of being Jewish you can be Orthodox or you’re just Jewish but you break the rules so
There’s either you stick to the rules or you break the rules but we don’t call breaking the rules a denomination I don’t know how to say um we just call it breaking the rules so and that’s something Italians do really well like that’s our specialty we break the rules all the time
So the way you’re raised as a Jew is you’re told what are the things you should be doing and you’re going to be trying your best on your life and then you’re going to have to deal with the fact that your best is insufficient uh because you’re really
Not sticking to all of the rules but but by that time you’re old enough to make you know peace with it so I was brought up like I said in a in a fairly Orthodox context our synagogues are quite Orthodox um our school we would be taught all of the prayers and
All of the proper things um but then you know what you’re taught sort of crashes clashes against reality because in reality it’s harder to stick to all of the rules so I always felt like I was somehow a bad Jew and now in the US I’m
Told I’m a reformed Jew and I’m like great um so so that’s been lucky moving to the US and suddenly finding that I’m just not a bad girl I’m I’m among other bad people like me um and um other than that you as a Jew in Italy like I said
First of all we’re very Lu in Italy there’s very little anti-Semitism virtually none um despite the fact that it’s a Catholic country and it’s been fairly bad to its Jews for centuries I want to say to be a Jew in Italy today is relatively easy I mean I was never I
Never had any challenges um unlike I would imagine you would have in France or in other um places in Europe uh this however is also sort of aided by the fact that most Jews of Italy lead a fairly secular life so like I said you can you can be a Jew in Italy
And people wouldn’t really notice like you’re just a average jaw and none of us goes around you know I don’t know with the long sleeves and the long skirt and a wig not many so so you’re you’re fairly Anonymous among people of other religions um the only substantial
Difference would be like I don’t know when I when I went to high School my snack wouldn’t have prut in it it would have turkey daily um like daily turkey or something like that but other than that you’re pretty much the same as everyone else
Um so it’s some somehow like a I want to say metical experience like you’re just part of the context you have your own special things but they sort of build on the Italian identity they don’t substantially change it or they don’t like it’s not like one identity robs of
The other what advice would you give to that young girl growing up in Milan probably the one thing is to try and think even bigger I always felt like I was thinking bigger than the average person there uh but the world is so much bigger and the opportunities are so much more
Numerous um a lot of us I think especially in Italy but in in many countries and I think Europe in general we don’t look a lot outside our comfort zone um even when I even me moving abroad and changing countries and doing many things that was ambitious but
It wasn’t like the most ambitious thing one could have done um and I think not being afraid of pushing the envelope of trying new things of going out of that comfort zone CU that’s really where the fun happens is what I wish I could have done more for myself as a younger um
Person um I gave up on a few opportunities because at the time I was like oh that’s scary I don’t know is it safe and safe is never a great place to be um in general I think that’s what I feel like I’ve learned to to grow and to
And to make progress safe is not the place to be so be less safe would have been probably a good piece of advice so you said that this book started with 400 recipes probably even more but yeah call it 400 round it down to 400 so what are
You gonna do with the rest of those will there is there another book coming uh I don’t think there’s another I don’t think there’s part two of this book um I’m working on some Italian version of it hopefully at some point and uh and there there’s a few other things that
Will rotate around but I think that book is done for now um I have another project that I’m working on which is even more Niche and is even more weird than geeky um so I don’t know that it will have an audience at all I’m still shopping around for a publisher but um
But the the book is sort of happening in my head um we call it wish for thinking um which is a book about the the cuisine and the traditions of the Jews of Libya um my most people can’t even Place Libya on a on a map so don’t worry it’s all
Good you go home you Google it if you’re one of those it’s no offense taken um but Libya is the country where my father’s family came from um it’s a very interesting place and I think um actually it fits within the fact that there’s a number of people I think
Worldwide in the Jewish um world that are trying to claim back their um what they call the sahi um experience so the experience of the Jews that lived in the Arab world in North Africa um until fairly recently most of these Jewish populations lived there until the 40s
The 50s the 60s um and then they’re gone there are no more Jews left in those countries Libya has zero Jews as of today um all of those Jews had to flee those countries for their life um and they um had a very very specific experience because these were people
That left their countries not like me to you know have more opportunities or learn or have fun these were people that had to leave their countries against their will so they have a very conflicted identity um they moved somewhere else a lot in the case of Libya most of them moved to Italy
Because it’s just across the Mediterranean and many of them moved to Israel some to the US so they embraced another culture they a lot of them grew up in another C culture because they were young where they moved but their heart remains in the country of origin and they have cherish their recipes
Their Traditions their way of praying and all of that stuff um for decades and for Generations um while obviously not being allowed to go back to their motherland so I don’t know it’s it’s a culture that fascinates me and um and it’s that other half of my identity it’s the other half
Of the way I grew up so it’s it’s a Cuisine that I’m very interested in that has virtually not really been um recorded in writing just yet um mostly because these populations were very lowly educated um so just mostly for lack of opport logistical opportunities
And so I am um yeah I’m I’m doing my documentation and collection of recipes and things and putting together a book proposal that hopefully somebody will buy tell us a little bit about the cuisine of Libya something most people don’t know much about yeah no I wouldn’t
Like I said it’s not surprising because it’s just one of those countries that are not really much on a map also for most people like I mean Libya the very few times that Libya is in the news is because there’s some crazy dictator that is like you know um acting out so um
Tough Country to be in and um so their Cuisine their Cuisine is obviously very Mediterranean there’s a great deal of tomato a great deal of spices um a lot of stews and things that are very flavorful um uh cuscus obviously like everywhere else in the Mediterranean um and um amazing
Sweets uh very very um delicate uh crafty desserts um and um and if and a lot of very specific Jewish things uh that correlate to the Jewish holidays and to um to you know the specific Jewish dietary needs so and and and another aspect to it
Which is not exactly the um the cuisine but um but a lot of uh stories and um how do I say Traditions that are that are very interesting like these Jews were Jewish 100% but they did a number of other really weird things um and they had their own customs and habits that
Are completely different from that of the Jews of other places um like there are marriage traditions and holiday traditions um that I uh find very fascinating and some of them pertain to food some of them don’t strictly pertain to food um but for example on on I don’t
Know at the end of Passover you would uh bring your um spouse a a bunch of salad and flowers so I was like what why would they bring a bunch of salad like you you would literally go with a bowl of um lettuce to your spouse and I remember my
Grandfather did it at the end of Passover he would come to my grandmother with flowers and a bunch of salads so um just just some really weird customs and some of them have to do with food or for example if you’re if you’re going to get married um the the week before the
Marriage they used to make a stew with the heart of a cow because that symbolize the way the cow the heart was going from this from the guy that was getting married to the uh to the bride so I don’t know a lot of weird interesting customs and the you know the
Geeking me is digs um recording all of this stuff and what is the origin of bringing the salad do you know that was that was a m it used to be before Passover was the time you asked for a woman you asked a woman to marry uh to
Get married and uh the custom would be to bring some some food to the family so some people would bring a salad and for some reason still even though people are married at the end of Passover you present the the salad if you could be eating anything at all anywhere in the
World right now what would you want to have what would I want to have I would want to be with my mom like everybody does I guess cuz Mom’s food is the best food um and what would I like to eat in particular uh um my mother makes just so many yummy
Things um probably my mother’s lasagna at the cost of sounding like a cliche Italian person I’m just going to say lasagna and I’m going to own it thanks for listening to the passionistas project podcast and our interview with benetta Jasmine geta visit her food blog
Labna doit to get a copy of her book cooking allaha Juda connect with her on Instagram at labna and if you’re in Los Angeles have lunch at Cafe loie and be sure to visit the passionistas pro.com to sign up for our mailing list find all the ways you can follow us on
Social media and join our worldwide Sisterhood of women working together to level the playing field for us all we’ll be back next week with another passionista who is defining success on her own terms and breaking down the barriers for herself and women everywhere until then stay well and stay passionate