What’s in a name? Maybe a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but when Elderhostel changed its name to Road Scholar, well, which one would you rather attend?
As I write this, I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with my friends Anna and Felix Livits of Fullerton on a learning adventure with Road Scholar, the nonprofit educational travel organization for seniors. We are here to learn about New Mexico’s Converso and Crypto-Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition. (Conversos were forced to convert to Christianity; Crypto-Jews have kept their Judaism a secret for centuries.)
One of our fascinating lecturers was Isabelle Medina Sandoval, author of “Guardians of Hidden Treasures,” a historical novel about generations of Crypto-Jews, beginning in Spain in the late 1300s and ending in New Mexico. They hid from the Inquisition, seeking freedom in the New World.
Dr. Sandoval’s own converted Catholic family, whose ancestors originated from Toledo, Spain, came to New Mexico in 1598, through Mexico.
One of the ways Jewish traditions were kept alive through the centuries was in the cooking and baking. Many of the dishes prominent in New Mexico’s cuisine are strikingly similar to the Jewish dishes passed down through the centuries.
Case in point: biscochitos, New Mexico’s state cookie.
“My Catholic family used to make them for Christmas,” Dr. Sandoval said. “Yet my mother used butter, not lard. I use Crisco.”
Dr. Sandoval brought us cookies to sample. My friend Anna, who emigrated to the U.S. with her family from Belarus in 1989, said, “My mom used to make a very similar cookie called korzhiki. Felix said that they look like his mother’s korzhiki too.
“I googled it in Russian and found a similar recipe,” she added. “When I was a little girl, my mother would roll the dough and put holes in it with a fork. She’d add the sugar and cut out diamond shapes or rounds with a glass. The little pieces left over she gave to us, and we made our own shapes.
“My father used to say that our family came from Spain, then went to Austria and then to Belarus after the Inquisition,” Anna said, recalling that another of our lecturers, cultural anthropologist Ron Duncan Hart, noted that some Jews fleeing the Inquisition fled to the Netherlands, Balkans, North Africa and Belarus. “I started thinking maybe my father was right.”
Dr. Sandoval did not have a written recipe, instead she makes the cookies by feel. I found the one featured here on New Mexico’s website.
Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.
This recipe for New Mexico’s state cookie is from newmexico.org.
Note: Jewish bakers would use butter, margarine or shortening, never lard.
Ingredients:
Method:
1. Sift together flour, baking powder, anise, and salt.
2. Beat lard in electric mixer, gradually adding sugar, until extremely fluffy and light, about 8 minutes. Don’t shortcut this step. Stop mixer every couple of minutes and scrape sides of bowl. Add egg, followed by wine; continue beating. Mix in dry ingredients, about one-third of mixture at a time. Stop mixer with each addition. Beat no longer than necessary to incorporate dry ingredients. A stiff pie-crust type of dough is what you’re seeking. Chill dough about 15 minutes for easy handling.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Roll out dough 1/4-inch thick on floured work surface and cut with paring knife into a fleur-de-lis, or cut with small cookie cutter. Avoid handling dough any more than necessary, one of the keys to the melt-in-your-mouth texture. Transfer cookies to prepared baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until just set and pale golden.
5. When cookies are done, cool for just a minute or two on baking sheets, then gently dunk top of each in cinnamon-sugar topping. Transfer to absorbent paper to finish cooling.
