Recipes give insight into history

When Cara De Silva came across an old Holocaust manuscript, she had no idea how big her next project would become.

Speaking to a group at Van Pelt Library Wednesday as part of a series of presentations about cuisine and culture, De Silva told the remarkable story of the handmade cookbook and the lives of the women who wrote it.

The manuscript, which is now in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., was conceived in Terezin, a concentration camp during World War II, by a group of Jewish women including Mina Pachter. After Pachter's death, the cookbook was safeguarded by several friends until it was delivered to her daughter, Anny Stern, 25 years later.

De Silva described the manuscript as a "horrific and poignant" memoir contrasting "the world from which the authors were torn, and the world in which they were currently living."

The cookbook reveals more than just the recipes and memories of the women's lives. Substitutions in the recipes and the use of wartime rations indicate that systematic starvation had already begun before the authors were expelled from their homes.

The psychological state of the women is also evident in the cookbook. De Silva described the recipes as "marked by fear, illness, starvation and mental deterioration." Many of the recipes are broken and incomplete, characteristics that are not fully explained by cultural shorthand and terse writing.

De Silva said she believes it is "important to concentrate on what is wrong, rather than on what is right." It is these disparities that make the cookbook such an eye-opening artifact.

The disparities presented reveal the "decline in mental faculties" of the women who wrote it, De Silva said. Although De Silva did not herself attempt to cook some of the recipes, Terezin survivor and cookbook translator Bianca Brown did and was disappointed due to the holes in the text.

For these women, the cookbook was "a means of using memory to preserve identity," De Silva explained. It was their way to psychologically fight back against the Third Reich.

De Silva noted that this cookbook is not the only one of its kind. She knows of about a dozen others, including one written on Nazi propaganda leaflets.

De Silva spoke of American prisoners of war in the Philippines who also wrote a cookbook of their favorite recipes, claiming that thinking of food strengthened their resolution to survive and reminded them of the life to which they wanted to return.

De Silva's biggest challenge while editing the cookbook was the emotional repercussions of her work, but two and a half years and 32 publishers after starting, the manuscript was ready for publication.

The night of publication, De Silva held a commemoration for the women of Terezin. A professional chef, using his knowledge of cooking, was able to recreate several recipes in the cookbook, the fruits of which were then served to the guests. De Silva called it "a most amazing experience. We were tasting what they were remembering."

Ethel Hofman, an audience member and local culinary consultant, read the book several times, adding that "each time is more moving than the last."

Hofman said that when she baked an almond cake from the cookbook, "I felt that I was reliving the lives of these women."

College senior Sarah Thompson said she liked the lecture because it was "fascinating to learn how these women used recipes as a means of survival."

Audience member Jill Horn echoed De Silva's sentiment that the importance of reading the book "is to keep alive the memory of these women. Otherwise, this would have been all gone."

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