In My Kitchen with Paula

Culinary Time Travel: Sephardic Flavours and Tales with Hélène Jawhara Piñer

• Paula Mohammed • Episode 30

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What can food tell us about history, identity, and resilience?

In this episode of In My Kitchen with Paula, I sit down with Hélène Jawhara Piñer — historian, professor, and author of Matzah and Flour — to explore the powerful stories behind Sephardic cuisine. With a PhD in medieval history and the history of food, Hélène shares how her research into Inquisition trials and Jewish food traditions unearthed a rich, global culinary heritage that continues to shape how we eat today.

We discuss her personal story, including growing up between French and Andalusian cultures, and how her work connects history, religion, and recipes in surprising and eye-opening ways.

You’ll hear reflections on:
 📚 The real history of Sephardic Jews and how their food evolved post-1492
 🥖 The cultural and spiritual meaning behind matzah and unleavened bread
 🧾 Why Inquisition trials are an unlikely but powerful source of food history

Whether you’re a food lover, history buff, or curious traveler, this episode will leave you inspired to see meals — and menus — through a deeper, more meaningful lens.

HELPFUL LINKS

📘 Get Hélène’s cookbook Matzah and Flour
📕 Check out her first book: Sephardi: Cooking the History
📸 Follow Hélène on Instagram
🧳 Download my free Travel Planning Tool

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SAY HELLO

In My Kitchen creates connections one dish at a time, by exploring culture through food. I do this through unique culinary workshops, speaking engagements, and of course, this podcast.

I'd love to hear from you! Connect with me in one of three ways:

Paula Mohammed:

Hi, I'm Paula Mohammed and welcome to In My Kitchen with Paula. This podcast is a gathering place for culinary adventures who love to travel. Every week, we'll come together with chefs, cookbook authors, talented home cooks, and everyone in between to talk about their story and their unique dish using food as the vehicle will take a ride into the ins and outs of their culture and country. Come on, let's get this party started. Welcome back to my Kitchen with Paula. Thanks for joining me and, uh, listening in. In this unique episode, I chat with Hélène Jawhara Piñer, a historian and food aficionado with a PhD in medieval history and history of food. Hélène introduces us to the vibrant world of Sephardic cuisine, sharing stories from her new cookbook, Matzah and Flour. This was such an eye-opener conversation and I learned so much, and I hope you do too. Of course we also get a local's insight into the beautiful Bordeaux region of France. Welcome to the show, Hélène, I'm so excited to have you here.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

I am super happy to be here as well.

Paula Mohammed:

Hélène has a PhD in medieval history and history of food. She teaches in two different French universities, the University of Tours and Bordeaux, Montaigne. Excuse my pronounciation. Hélène has also lectured at University of Pennsylvania, Yale, UCLA, Berkeley, Bar-Ilan, and is a Broom and Alan Fellow from the American Sephardi Federation. Hélène is the author of Sephardi Cooking: the History. Jews, Food, and Spain. And most recently, Matzah and Flour. Hélène, I am so curious to know how one develops this interest in medieval history and history of food, but I'm going to come back to that. First just to make sure we're all coming from the same place, can you briefly explain to our listeners, uh, who are the Sephardic Jews and what is Sephardic cuisine? And am I pronouncing it correctly?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes, the Sephardic Jews are the Jews of Spain in the diaspora. So all the Jews that, uh, since 1492, uh, were expelled from Spain and Portugal and had to settle in all other countries like Morocco, like Nigeria, like the Balkans, Italy, but also the countries on the other side of the Atlantic. All those people are Sephardic Jews.

Paula Mohammed:

Great. And Sephardic cuisine, I imagine is the dishes that came from, uh, the time before they were exiled.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes. Well, Sephardic cuisine, in fact, people think that, uh, Sephardic cuisine is, mainly only one kind of cuisine, but it's not the case. So there are so many different kinds of Sephardic cuisines that are related to the places where the Sephardic Jews settled. So we have a Sephardic cuisine from Morocco. We have a Sephardic cuisine from Italy. We have a Sephardic cuisine from Mexico. So it really depends of the different locations. Before 1492, we only use the term of the cuisine of the Jews of Spain, or the cuisine of the Jews of Portugal, because the word sephardi, is really related to everything that happened after 1492.

Paula Mohammed:

Thank you for that. Now I am dying to hear more about your story. If you could share with us, first of all where you're speaking to us from, and then a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself going down this path of medieval history, the history of food, and the Sephardic culinary world.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Well, I'm talking from France. Southwest France, uh, in Bordeaux. So I'm very close to Spain. My family from my father's side is from Andalusia. So we live in the Gibraltar. So it's, so far we have Morocco just in front of our house where we live. And we're Sephardic. And on my mother's side, they are French. My mother is French, and we live in Normandy. So not so far from Paris. On my mother's side, they are absolutely not Spanish at all. My interest in medieval history and history of food is it's something that I have always been interesting in those two topics. I love history and I'm a food lover. On the both sides of my family, we love eating and they are on my mother's side, there are a lot of professionals like bakers and caterers, and we love eating. We love those, you know, when everybody meets for big lunch or big meals. It is a very interesting and great time. We, we love spending together. I think I should add the religious topic on the interest. You were asking about medieval history and history of food and my interest on religious practices in the, this is a good trial, in fact, to understand my interest in this.

Paula Mohammed:

It sounds like you grew up with food playing a large role in your family, and were there other cultures that influenced the way you cook now?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

This is a good question. Well, I told you on my mother's side, they are super French. So, so they grew up in Normandy. There are a lot of dishes with heavy cream and butter, you know, those kind of dishes, like super heavy dishes. But I also discovered that, they were Ashkenazi from the mother of my grandfather on my mother's side. We did not know about this since recently. There is this very deep French culinary tradition, but on my father's side, this is totally the opposite or it's totally a different kind of food culture. Like we're eating a lot of peppers and a lot of meatballs and a lot of olive oil and garlic and eggplants. I grew up between those two different field of food practices and food contributions and this made what I am today.

Paula Mohammed:

How do you express your love of cooking? What does that look like for you with your family now?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

What is quite funny is I don't cook French dishes. That's a bit weird, saying this, but I, I'm not super fan of French food. but this is not the case for pastries and bread. I love Mediterranean dishes, like with a lot of vegetables and a lot of olive oil and garlic and eggplants and those kind of dishes. Even if I'm a good combination between those two worlds, I am more on the, you know, south side.

Paula Mohammed:

Do you do most of the cooking?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Oh yes. I cook all time. It's super hard for me when I go on, you know, I'm on vacation or I go somewhere for holidays and I'm not in my kitchen. In fact, this is funny because, or I am in my kitchen cooking and experiencing new recipes, or I am in my office working on Inquisition trials. So, you know, I just spend my time from one place to another, but this is what I used to do and I am so sad when after like a couple of days, I was not able to cook or to create new recipes.

Paula Mohammed:

I can relate to that. I just, I mentioned to you before we started recording that we had just been in Paris and Portugal, and I hadn't been back to Paris for a long time. And my regret is that we were staying in a hotel room and I really wish we had a kitchen because I forgot how much I love going through the markets there. And, and I, I also realize there's as many bad bistros in Paris as there are good ones.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

I agree.

Paula Mohammed:

Thank you for letting us get to know you a little bit more before we dive into the rest. I have to tell you, before I met you, before I was connected to who you are, my son and I were talking and I said to him, "you know, I really wish that in schools when they taught history, they also taught the history of food of that era and that location and that period at the same time, because there's so much that we learn from the history of food" and then I discovered you and your cookbooks and you just prove my point once again. So if there's any teachers out there, I think you should reach out to Hélène and maybe work on a curriculum that can go through the school systems.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Oh yes. I teach medieval history and I teach history of food. But I am also a Spanish teacher in high school. And I have this opportunity to talk about Spanish culture, of the culture of all the Spanish speaking world and I always talk about the relevance of food, uh, in the time of understanding the Spanish world culture. So yes, it's interesting. You can just give work on a different angle and you can learn so much about the territory, the country, where they were speaking and they are speaking Spanish through food. And this, in fact, it's, you know, a plus to understand.

Paula Mohammed:

Matzah and Flour, your latest cookbook. Before we dive further into it, can you just share with us, what is matzah? Because not everybody may understand what that is.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Good. Yes, you're right. Matzah is unleavened bread. Bread that did not rise. So you can make, uh, matzah from different kinds of flour. Today when we think about matzah, it's obviously wheat, but it was absolutely not the case. And that's why I also by the way, wrote the book. Uh, so matzah, it's just flour and water. Basically, it's just this. And it is obviously deeply connected to the Jewish people and the celebration of Passover.

Paula Mohammed:

And can it be any type of flour?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Oh yes. In fact, nowadays we think that it's only wheat flour, but it can be made of absolutely all the different flours that exists. And my cookbook, just tell the story of all those different kinds of matzah made with different kinds of flour. And they are matzah. If they did not rise, it's matzah. And if they are made under 18 minutes, they're considered as matzah.

Paula Mohammed:

Interesting. Under 18 minutes. Why the 18 minutes?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Because it's the time, uh, that in Judaism, it is considered that if you go beyond the 18 minutes, so the combination between flour and water, when we start to knead the dough. So after 18 minutes, it starts to rise. So as we do not want it to rise, you have to make everything from the very, very beginning to the end, which includes the baking time. It has to be under 18 minutes.

Paula Mohammed:

That's actually very efficient and doable for any meal as well. I like that. You mentioned you wrote the book because matzah is not flour. So were you on a mission to educate people on what matzah is, or why did you write the cookbook?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Writing another cookbook just after my first one, Sephardic Cooking: The History. This was not something that I have been thinking about. I was thinking about just writing another one. I wrote Sephardi, Sephardi was published in 2021 and this one only came few years after. But when I was finishing Sephardic Cooking: The History, I realized that I had leftover recipes or information, not recipes, but mainly informations that were dealing with this unleavened bread. So I decided to just to gather all the information I had and to write Matzah and Flour cookbook. And you are right, my goal was also to share with the people, not maybe to instruct, but to share with the people what I have been learning about the different kinds of matzah which are related to the Sephardi history.

Paula Mohammed:

And just so people know I have the cookbook and it's a really interesting book. This is not a book that's just a collection of recipes that were left over. When I was reading it, I felt like I was learning history, religious studies and recipes that I could use right away. I was blown away with your level of research, but I guess that's what a PhD person is all about. I learned so much and the rules around Passover for example, because we just had Passover and Easter, so I was very interested in that. I was actually felt a bit embarrassed how little I knew after I was reading your book. So anyone who's interested in history, religious studies, and matzah and flour. I highly recommend the book. How long did it take you to do the research for this book? I understand that it was kind of carried over from your previous one, but there's a depth to it that I haven't seen before in other books like this.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Matzah and Flour, and Sephardi, they are both unconventional cookbooks because it's not like, you know, you have the recipe, you have the process, and that's all. So they are made from my research as a PhD. And it's hard to answer the question concerning how many time it took me to write this cookbook because the Sephardi and Matzah and Flour are part of my research since I am a PhD candidate. I'm always working. I'm always investigating. It took me so much time. I don't know, maybe four, three years maybe. I am not inventing the dishes. First, I have to find the source to read it and, you know, to cross my fingers and hope, hopefully I find something interesting for me. And then to translate it, so the research is like 80% of my work.

Paula Mohammed:

Were you a practicing chef as well before you did your PhD?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

In fact, during my PhD, I started to work also as a chef, but only for Jewish families because they ask me something, always special kinds of cooking. But also they ask me to like to give a talk and to presentation of what are my research dealing with. And so I do not have a restaurant, but I used to cook for people as well.

Paula Mohammed:

Reading Matzah and Flour, I came across the, well, the first section obviously, and it's about the old and holy bread. Can you share a little bit about the research where you reference Dr. Cynthia Schaefer Elliot on domestic cooking in the time of the Hebrew Bible? I find it personally fascinating to know how people cook and their daily routine. Just when I go to another country, let alone back in history.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes, I agree. It's not that easy to find good references concerning food practices and unfortunately this is something that today, you have so many food writers that start sharing information that are not true. This is a really big problem, very big issue that unfortunately also happens a lot concerning Jewish food. I don't know why, but it's really, it's not good at all. Anyway, so when I work and do my research, I always reach out to people that are PhDs as well and for certain kinds of informations. It really depends of what you are looking for. So you can learn so much from interesting and fascinating chefs. You can learn so much thanks to obviously other scholars like me from their research. And you can learn so much as well concerning your experience, your own experience eating, but also just talking with people. I never met Cynthia, my colleague in person. Nevertheless, I read her book and I was also in Tel Aviv, few years ago in Asif where I was able to see an exhibition on the breads in Jerusalem. And I was fascinated also by this and it's an exhibition made by scholars as well. So that's why I decided to quote and to highlight Cynthia's work.

Paula Mohammed:

What was domestic cooking like back then? I imagine people weren't cooking for the love of it?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Well, easy food, you know? At that time you did not have that much, and that much interest as well. So all the products were already known at that time. But they were food that we are still using today. The most important thing is that the cooking and the cuisine was something very simple, not something complicated. And the way the things were baked was more interesting. The process is more interesting than dish itself.

Paula Mohammed:

And would that process be tied to religious aspects or was it just the process of cooking?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Well, it depends on the kind of source you are talking about. So obviously they are related to Judaism. Obviously you're gonna find, you're gonna read and you're gonna find information that are really tied to Jewish laws or the krout, or the dietary food law. So it really depends of what kind of source you are reading.

Paula Mohammed:

I have found from when I started In My Kitchen and then it evolved and now doing the podcast, the role of hospitality around the world is highly prioritized and valued especially compared to North America and everybody that I talk to almost we get into a conversation about hospitality. With Leila, one of our hosts, she's from Rasht, Iran. Even in times of adversity, there's still this, your door is always open. There's always, room at the table for another guest. Going back in history, in your research, did you come across this at all in terms of how people ate together, the role of food in people's lives, was there celebrations, gatherings? I'm curious if you came across anything like that in terms of the role of hospitality.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Obviously I found this kind of information, but the result is totally different because it really depends of the place you are talking about and it really depends of the period you are talking about. And it also really depends of who were the rulers of this territory at that time, so I could share three different point of view. First thing is that before there were Sephardic Jews, the Jews of Spain, there are evidence of the lives of the Jews in Spain since the second century. So at that time there were also small Christian communities, and obviously there were no Muslim at that time because they they only came in the eighth century. When the three religions were living together and they were living good together, it was until the 10th century. Until the 10th century, there were no big problems. But then the problems came in the 11th century when a Berber dynasty from Morocco started to rule the country. So the country, I mean, what is Spain nowadays? Because they had a very dogmatic view of Islam. And so that's when started the problems. But it was less problematic than when the Christians started to rule the country in the 15th century. So this means that there is what we call acculturation when you share your culture with other people. This can happen when one culture does not fear about the new culture who is coming. This happened when everybody's living together with almost no problem. But when someone comes and the new culture is coming and it's very bad. It's so too hard to live together, that's when you can talk about non hospitality in food. I have been able to find this in sources that were dealing with the food practices of the Muslims, who were scared about the food practices of the Christians and of the Jews. And I have been also able to find this avoiding this hospitality in Jewish sources that you really don't want to accept some bread from a non-Jewish person. Things started to be very hard concerning food hospitality in Spain since the 11th, 12th century to, to the 18th century.

Paula Mohammed:

Wow. Maybe just a brief history lesson, if you don't mind, on the Inquisition trials.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Well, the Inquisition is a judicial court created by the Christian, by the Catholics monarchs in 1478. Even if they were not ruling all of Spain at that time, because they were only ruling the totality of Spain in 1492. But they decided to create this court, this judicial court to unify Spain under one thing, which was Catholicism. Muslims and Jews were not allowed to practice their religion for the Jews since 1492. Where they had to fled Spain or they had to convert. And the Muslims were allowed to stay in Spain since 1609. The goal of the Court of the Inquisition was to spy on all the Jews called the Converso Jews or the Crypto Jews. This mean that also the mariscos, so all the people who were pretending officially to be a good Christian, but in fact, they were still practicing their religion and mainly they were Jews.

Paula Mohammed:

When we go to Spain, will I see Sephardic cuisine in Spain? And what would that look like?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Oh wow. I wish I could tell you everywhere. But this would be a big lie. Obviously if you go more to the south, you're gonna find more evidences of our Jewish food practices, and show the dishes that are still made. I think that maybe Andalusia obviously it's like the most important place if you want to find some Sephardic dishes and the cities of Cordoba and the city of Seville may be the two most important ones. But also the Gibraltar. So it's a rock called Gibraltar, which is not a Spanish territory, but it's British territory. But nevertheless, there is interesting Jewish community there. Unfortunately, if you go to Spain and try to find some Jewish dishes, you are gonna find them but they won't be simple as Jewish dishes. For example, Passover and Easter just finished three days ago. You have, for example, in the south of Spain, a dish that is commonly made for Easter, so by the Christians, which is called orejuelas. It's a fried rolled pastry, and we have evidence that orejuelas were made by Sephardic Jews. We have many different kinds of sources that say that orejuelas were made by the Sephardic Jews, and now it's like Christian dish. At that point that orejuelas are mainly made for Easter. Then you have also for the same period. Yes, for Easter. You have this, what we call Mona de Pasqua, but it's like a big loaf of bread like brioche. And you have an egg just in the middle with a cross just over. And this is what Sephardic Jews used to prepare for Purim effect. It's just exactly the same thing. You have so many things, if you go to Cordoba, you have those fried eggplants with honey over. This is Sephardic as well, but people do not know about this.

Paula Mohammed:

The dishes are there but people wouldn't know necessarily. What about in Portugal? I just came back from Portugal and now I'm thinking about what I ate. What would it look like there?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Sometimes similar, but with Portugal we have a bit different story, because the Jews of Spain when the Inquisition started in this, the Inquisition started first in Spain. So when you started, all the Jews just decided to cross the border and to go to Portugal, and then few years after the Inquisition started as well in Portugal, so they decided to be back to Spain. So there is this shared culinary dishes, but I would talk about this sausage called alheira. Which is a sausage, which is a bit special because it is sometimes smoked but dried one, and it is made with bread and with chicken meat inside and no pork. And this is something that nowadays you can still find in northern eastern Portugal. It's one of the key evidence of Jewish culinary heritage of the Sephardi because it has no pork inside.

Paula Mohammed:

We had the sausages made with the bread. It was in the Alentejo region, so east of Evora. So yeah, I lived in Portugal for a little bit in 1998, but I was on the coast. I'd never had this sauce type of sausage. Very different.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

It's really from on the other side,

Paula Mohammed:

Ah...

Helene Jawhara Pina:

The Spanish border side.

Paula Mohammed:

That makes a lot of sense. That's exactly where we were.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Oh, yes, so totally you were in the right place.

Paula Mohammed:

This is interesting because I hope more people might listen to this podcast episode and do their own research on Sephardic cuisine and look for it in their travels. Because now you've got me thinking also about Goa on the coast of India, which was under Portuguese rule for a long time. So I assume that we would see influences of Sephardic cuisine there too.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes. Well, this is something that I used to repeat "when people move, food move", and you know what? When you have been expelled from a place you have been living all your entire life, you and the previous generations, you ancestors, and you have to leave this, uh, country. It's so hurtful. It's so much pain. So what you wanna do, and this is the case for what happened centuries before, but this is also what is happening with some refugees nowadays. So when you are expelled or when you have to leave the place where you have been living all your entire life, the first thing you want do when you arrive in the new territory is to recreate what like I could call a safe food or what makes you more comfortable, or what makes you feel good and better. And food is this. So when the Jews were expelled from Portugal and they just settled in Goa or in every place is what they wanted to do is to recreate those dishes because just to feel better or like home.

Paula Mohammed:

A taste of home. It's one thing I really love about living in Canada. I'm in Vancouver, so on the West coast, but we have such a rich, multicultural environment where we are and the foods from different cultures is celebrated, and people more so than ever are interested in learning about the food and then learning about culture through food. I think food is such an amazing way to learn about other people and literally break bread together without any pressure or any politics or it's just about good times. And getting to know somebody on that level. I think what you're doing is amazing and just in the short period reading your cookbooks and meeting you and doing this interview, it's opened up a whole other world to me that's definitely gonna be on my radar. A different way of even when I travel now I'm gonna think about the history of the country that I went to and seek out those different influences in the food. Now I'm curious because I just sort of went off on my own philosophy on food. Do you have a philosophy on food that has guided you through what you do?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

I'm totally fascinated about inquisition trials and learning from history and everywhere I go, when I have to go for conferences or just visiting, I am always fascinated by learning more. And also the way that people use certain kinds of ingredients differently from the way I use to use them. And this is actually happening with corn. I just so intrigued about corn and the way that you can use corn in different kinds of dishes and it tastes differently according to the way you used the corn. And with the chilies as well. So those ingredients, I am really intrigued by. And this is something I love to discover when I go to a country. I do not bring, you know, like, I bring some clothes as this would be like. But I mainly bring food. Because I didn't want to take them back. And I bring some seeds from, this is what I did with Mexico when I was in Mexico. So I brought some seeds, I brought some chilies and I brought from things from everywhere and just, I'm so nostalgic when I opened the bag and see. Wow, that's crazy, it's like part of myself is still there.

Paula Mohammed:

Have you ever baked or cooked with acorn flour? Do you use acorn flour?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Acorn flour. What is, what would they,

Paula Mohammed:

Acorn off the oak trees? I learned about the acorn flour from a fellow named Alfredo in Portugal, and he was a podcast guest and they're using acorns more and more as a way to kind of live sustainably with the environment. So I did some research on it; it's supposed to be very good for you as well. There's lots of health benefits to it. And then there's a traditional Portuguese acorn stew. I was curious if it's something that you've used or if you came across in your research at all.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

I did not, but I am definitely going to make some research.

Paula Mohammed:

You know, the Black Pigs in Portugal, it used to only be used to feed the pigs and that's why they tasted so good. But now they're using it as a sustainable way of cooking and lots of health benefits.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Okay. I know what you mean. Yeah, we have this practice in France to feed the pork.

Paula Mohammed:

Right.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

I did not know the word in English. But I know what you mean and I know that some people used to make some flour from this. but I only know about this for feeding animals.

Paula Mohammed:

See what you come up with. Might be a new cookbook for you.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes. I have so much ideas you cannot imagine.

Paula Mohammed:

One of my questions is, what is next for you?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Just before logging for this podcast, I was working on a trial. I discovered when I was at Penn last year. I spent five weeks at the University of Pennsylvania because I got a fellowship to work there in the archives on Inquisition trials. I did not know that what I was about to discover because they asked me to come and to read and to be able to do some research there. So I was super lucky because after one week, I was able to find one trial a huge one, that was dealing with pork lard and food in general. And I am working on this one. You know, it's a huge work and I want to publish it. So it's gonna be focused on the relevance of pork and lard in the food practices of a woman, especially one family and one woman, and the role of women in keeping the food identity of her family and the way it's her life. In fact, since she is caught to come and to be sentenced and to listen to what is going to happen to her in the court of the Inquisition in Toledo, 16th century. It's her story through, you know, her food practices, her housekeeping practices, her everything. It is just crazy. So I want to publish this book to offer transcription in Spanish, in modern Spanish, and the translation in English, and also like a work on this.

Paula Mohammed:

That fascinates me, knowing and having insight into those practices and her role, and then the story behind it makes it almost like a novel. So when you do this research, in the Inquisition trials, are you coming across recipes? How would her notes have been preserved? Where would she have left them that you would come across them? Does that make sense?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes, it's interesting. You never come with recipes in the way there is a list of ingredients with amounts and with a name. It's never like this, because it's not a cookbook. And there was no Jewish cookbook. It was, would've been worse ever if the, for the Jews at that time to just to write a cookbook. Because they were already identified as Jewish for their food practices. So just guess what would have happened if they would've just write a cookbook? So when you work on inquisition trial, so it start judicial text. So you, you know, about the dishes because sometime you have the name of the dish like adefina, huevos camenados, tortitas, or like unleavened bread or the bread of the Jews or some things like this. And then sometime you have the process, but you never have the amounts. Obviously, you have the ingredients that are used in the recipe, but you do not have the recipe as you can find in a cookbook with a process, list of ingredients. It's not like this because it was not the purpose of this. You can learn a lot concerning the food practices of the people. So in that case of the Converso Jews, the crypto Jews, but also I was able to identify, to make a list of all the dishes that the Christians were making because obviously she denied cooking, those lard cakes and a pig and piglet. When she's avoiding this so you can understand that those were the practices of the Christians. So, it's so interesting. It's like, you know, a puzzle. It's just crazy. It's like a novel and I wish it could be just transformed into, a movie because a series movie. It's just crazy. The story of this woman makes me totally crazy. It's fascinating.

Paula Mohammed:

Well, I'm dying to find out, but I know I have to wait for the book probably what happened to her. I can see this as a movie. I can,

Helene Jawhara Pina:

It is, it's totally. It's really a movie.

Paula Mohammed:

That's awesome. Now I have to take advantage of the fact that you are from French Heritage as well, and that you are in Bordeaux. And ask you a little bit about Bordeaux from a local's perspective and what's it like there, where do you live and what's your day like today?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Well, I live in Bordeaux since 11 years right now. I was living very close to Paris before. I was born there and then I decided to move just to be closer to my Spanish side. So life in Bordeaux is really good. So we have a good weather. It's totally different from where I was living. I teach at the university here I live, I teach medieval history and I also teach in high school Spanish. And there is a small Jewish community here. It's a good place. We have the city of the wine, so we have so many tourists, American tourists, and Canadian tourists coming even more, more and more every year. And it's a really good city. I highly recommend people to come here. It's much more, it's better than Paris maybe right now. Oh, for the weather at least. And for the food, because we have very special and good food here. In the south, in Bordeaux, we have wine mainly. We have what we call canele, it's a pastry. And we have foie gras, obviously, foie gras we have everywhere. We also have good cheeses and good bread and we do not have like, those dishes like cassoulet or beef bourginon. We have this, but it's not our specialty. But cassoulet, it's very, you know, a special dish, that is made mainly Toulouse, it's not so far from, uh, from Bordeaux. I would say that, definitely say that, fois gras and wine are maybe one of our best And you know, there are a lot of things from Spain as well, so harm or things like this. Okay.

Paula Mohammed:

And do you go over to Spain quite a bit?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes. It's only two hours from home. So if you go to the first big place, like it's like San Sebastian. San Sebastian is two hours from home. I used to go, but you know, Northern Spain is totally different from where I live in Spain, in Andalusia we are like, you know, the opposite. I like Spanish people from the north of Spain, obviously, but it's just, we are in the south. In, we are like, whoa, super open. We like talking to everyone. We like just, we speak, super loud.

Paula Mohammed:

Are you familiar with an area, uh, Biscarosse?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Biscarrosse it's like one hour.

Paula Mohammed:

In 2013, I was there at Cottage du Lac with my two little kids We were there for three weeks and a little cottage. It was just amazing. I love the area. And we took the kids in the sand dunes. The big sand dunes. And then we did a road trip to San Sebastian. And, uh, that is, I mean, I, we were just on the very central area, of course, and eating all the pinxos and trying the food, but I can't wait to go back there. I really can't wait.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

It's a good place. It's a good place. Biscarrosse. It is like, like one hour from home. It's a good city. It's sunny and you have, you know, the sea and the lake and it's really good. And San Sebastian is really, it's close, like one hour from Biscarosse, so, and it's totally different. It's really Spanish. Really Northern Spanish.

Paula Mohammed:

Gotcha.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

You should come to where you should come. You should come, you know, in Andalusia though you, you can get even better what I mean.

Paula Mohammed:

Hélène, one thing that we normally do is each guest talks about a recipe. Is there one that you would like to share?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

I like this one. It's Pascua Do Pão Asmo. It's from Brazil. It's on page 95. it's called Pascua Do Pão Asmo, bread from Bahia. I really like this recipe. It's a really easy one with very simple ingredients that it has only flour and water. But you have this story and it's important to me to highlight as well the existence of Sephardic Jews in Brazil.

Paula Mohammed:

Hélène, it has been such a pleasure and so much fun to chat with you. Thank you for, the time and sharing your story and cookbook with us.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Thank you Paula. It was so great. I had a very good time with you for this podcast. Thank you for having me.

Paula Mohammed:

And for people who want to follow along and maybe buy, your cookbooks as well, what's the best way for them to find you and follow you?

Helene Jawhara Pina:

They can follow me on Instagram, so it's helenejawharapina, also my first name and last name. And this is the best way to reach out to me if they have any questions. And if they want to have like videos and of, you know, me cooking or telling the story of the Sephardic Jews. And then for my books, they can go to their local bookstore, they can find the books like, you know, it really depends on where they are living, but they can find it super easily and they can order it if it's not in store or they can just buy it on Amazon and other platforms. It's super easy.

Paula Mohammed:

I will put all that information in the show notes. Thank so much Hélène. Lovely meeting you.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

Yes, me too. It was one of the best, I think the best podcast I did. It was so natural. So that's great.

Paula Mohammed:

I hope we stay in touch and I can't wait to read about your next project.

Helene Jawhara Pina:

My pleasure. Thank Paula. Bye.

Paula Mohammed:

What a lovely person. Am I the only one right now who wants to go and get a PhD in the history of food? This conversation really opened my eyes to the history of food, introduced me to Sephardic cuisine and the diaspora, and it will influence how I travel in the future, I think. I'm going to be much more curious. Well, I know I'm already much more curious about the historical role of food in the places I visit. I loved Hélène's line "food moves when and where the people move". Something that was kind of bizarre is I realized after the fact, later in the day, when we recorded this, that April 24th, the day that we did this interview, was also Holocaust Remembrance Day. Interesting how that lined up, but I think it's important that we never forget and just want to acknowledge that date. I'm glad that this podcast episode happened on April 24th, 2025. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and if you enjoyed it, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. Feel free to email me at paula@inmykitchen.ca and sign up for my handy Travel planner tool. You'll also receive weekly newsletters from me that include the recipes from my podcast guests. Happy cooking, happy travels.

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Paula Mohammed

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