Los Angeles Kosher Restaurants

The cuisine of the Sephardi Jews is an assortment of cooking traditions that developed among the Jews of Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean, Turkey and Arab countries. Mizrahi Jews, who are often called Sephardic Jews, are Jews of origins from countries of the Orient, and Maghrebi Jews, who are from North Africa. While there is some overlap in populations due to the Sephardic Diaspora, Sephardic Jews settled in many other countries as well, and this article deals only with the populations originating in the Iberian Peninsula.

Jews in the Diaspora, both Ashkenazim and Sephardim, cooked foods that were popular in their countries of residence, adapting them to the requirements of kashrut. Their choice of foods was also determined by economic factors, with many of the dishes based on inexpensive and readily available ingredients. Meat had to be slaughtered in keeping with Jewish dietary laws, and then soaked and salted. Hence it was reserved for holidays and special occasions. Many Sephardi dishes use ground meat. Milk and meat products could not be mixed or served at the same meal. Cooked, stuffed and baked vegetables are central to the cuisine, as are various kinds of beans, chickpeas, lentils and burghul (cracked wheat). Rice takes the place of potatoes.

Babka, or Bobka, also known as baba, is a sweet yeast cake.

It is a spongy yeast cake that is traditionally baked for Easter Sunday in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia. Darra Goldstein, professor of Russian at Williams College says “babka comes from baba, a very tall, delicate yet rich yeast-risen cake eaten in Western Russia and Eastern Poland.” Traditional babka has some type of fruit filling, especially raisins, and is glazed with a fruit-flavored icing, sometimes with rum added. Modern babka may be chocolate or have a cheese filling.

Babka is popular among Jews, particularly those with family origins in Eastern Europe. The Jewish version however is different from the one described above. It is made from a doubled and twisted length of yeast dough and is typically baked in a high loaf pan. There is never a fruit filling; the dough contains either cinnamon or chocolate. It is usually topped with streusel. A similar cake called a kokosh is also popular in Jewish bakeries. Kokosh also comes in chocolate and cinnamon varieties, but it is lower and longer than babka, is not twisted, and not topped with streusel.

Babka of this style has become popular in North American cities with large Jewish populations, including Montreal, New York, Miami, and Toronto.

Other than the dessert variety, there also exists a traditional Eastern European Jewish variety prepared during Passover in lieu of bread. Generally, this sort is not sweet and is prepared using crushed matzos with water, egg, and salt. Some Polish Jews refer to pancakes with these ingredients as bubbeleh, a name similar to babka.

The Polish noun babka and Russian baba (Russian: баба) mean “grandmother,” and as applied to the pastry probably refer to its shape, a tall cylinder, sometimes with corrugations resembling a skirt’s pleats. The name of the pastry entered the English language from Polish, via French, although “babka” is also sometimes used in its original sense (“grandmother”), especially among those of Eastern European descent