Cuisine of the Sephardic Jews

The cuisine of the Sephardi Jews is an assortment of cooking traditions that developed among the Jews of Spain and Portugal, and those of this Iberian origin who were dispersed in the Sephardic Dispora, and ultimately became the Eastern Sephardim and North African Sephardim as they settled throughout the Mediterranean in places such as Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, as well as the Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa. Cuisine of the Sephardi Jews also includes the cuisine of those who became the Western Sephardim who settled in Holland, England, and from these places elsewhere.

Although Mizrahi Jews, being the pre-existing Jews of the Greater Middle East (who are of non-Spanish and non-Portuguese origins), are sometimes called Sephardim in a broader sense due to their style of liturgy, and although there is some overlap in populations due to the Sephardic Diaspora, the Sephardic Jews also settled in many other countries outside the Greater Middle East as well. As such, this article deals only with the cuisine of the Jewish populations with ancestral origins in the Iberian Peninsula, in whichever regions they settled, not just the Greater Middle East. For Cuisine of the Mizrahi Jews, please see that article.

As with other Jewish ethnic divisions composing the Jewish Diaspora, Sephardim cooked foods that were popular in their countries of residence, adapting them to Jewish religious dietary requirements. known as kashrut. Their choice of foods was also determined by economic factors, with many of the dishes based on inexpensive and readily available ingredients.

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