One of my favourite times of the academic year is the History team’s ‘History on a Plate’ week. We use food from historical recipes to explore some of the themes we explore in our modules. Last year, Gavin Rand had a look at rule and resistance in 19th-century North India through chapattis, whilst food and kitchen historian extraordinaire Sara Pennell explored the life and times of the 18th-century publishing pioneer Hannah Woolley using delicious-looking pompion (pumkin) pie.
Last year, I tried – and largely failed – to make passable Ottoman baklava, so this year I thought I’d try something different (and simpler!). The dish I chose is ‘bimuelos’, a sweet treat made by some Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire and beyond for the festival of Hanukkah.
‘Hanukkah’ comes from the Hebrew root word ḥanakh, meaning to inaugurate or dedicate. This word provides a neat little summary of the festival. If you want the full story, the narrative can be found in the First and Second Book of Maccabees, although the books themselves are not part of the Jewish scriptural canon of the five books of the Torah, the books of the prophets, or the books of scriptures.
The tale begins in the aftermath of the conquests of Alexander the Great. A Greek empire was established in the Near East, including the Jewish kingdom of Judea. The new ruler, Antiochus, attempted to subdue the Jews by prohibiting many of their religious practices and customs. The ultimate act of this oppression was the desecration of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which was defiled with idols and impure sacrifices, and the holy flame that was always kept lit was extinguished.
Whilst some Jews welcomed the arrival of this new culture, others sought to fight back. One family from the priestly class became a nucleus for resistance. Yehudah ha-Makabi, anglicised as Judah Maccabee, led the Jewish fight-back against the invaders – ha-makabi means ‘the hammer’ in Hebrew, a reference to his strength as a warrior. Overcoming their enemies, Judah and his forces retook Jerusalem, and purified and reconsecrated the Jewish Temple, rekindling the holy flame as a final symbol of their victory.
The Talmud, the written version of Jewish oral laws and traditions, explains this episode further. When Judah and his soldiers entered the Temple, seeking to relight the flame, they found that all of the special olive oil stored for that purpose had been defiled, except for one single jar. The jar contained just enough oil to keep the flame lit for just one day, whereas it would take eight days for new batches of olive oil to be produced. However, a miracle occurred. This one little jar of olive oil burned for eight days, keeping the flame alive until the new batch of holy oil arrived. Hanukkah is therefore the festival that remembers this miracle.
From this story and its miracle came the three core elements of marking Hanukkah across Jewish communities: eight days of celebration; lighting a special candelabrum, called a hanukkiah, with one candle lit for each night of the festival; and the eating of food cooked in oil. One form of fried food eaten as part of the Hanukkah observance gives a fascinating insight into another episode in Jewish history from my field of research and teaching, the Ottoman Empire. Jews of Spanish origin in the Ottoman Empire made bimuelos, a sweet treat for the holiday – and that’s what I’ve chosen for this year’s ‘History on a Plate’. But why were there Spanish Jews in the Ottoman Empire – and what are bimuelos? Have a look at this video, to find out more.
I’m proud that we cover a range of Jewish histories in our History programme at the University of Greenwich, and hope this little post will inspire a few of you to do some of your own exploring.
For those celebrating, whether you’re frying latkes, sufganiyot, bimuelos, or zalabiya, I wish you a very happy Hanukkah.
Dr Michael Talbot
Senior Lecturer in the History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Middle East
