Peppers for Tammuz תמוז
In The Greenhouse by Meer Akselrod (1902-1970)
Disclaimer: The information in this article is intended for general informational purposes only and does NOT constitute medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions about your health or treatment. The information provided is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
We are already more than halfway through the month of Tammuz, a time associated with heat. Tammuz, Rashi explains, means “heating,” like a glowing furnace. Many regions are experiencing their peak pepper season now, as colorful peppers ripen in the intense summer sun.
Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is native to India. Gil Marks writes in The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food: “As far back as the ancient Roman sea voyages across the Indian Ocean to the Malabar Coast beginning in the first century CE, most of the spice merchants there were Cochini Jews. For four centuries during the early Middle Ages, until around 1000 CE, Jewish merchants known as Radhanites imported all the spices from the Far East into the Middle East and Europe. After the collapse of the Radhanites, Venice acquired the monopoly on the European spice trade. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the modern world emerged as a result of Europe's pursuit of this spice.”
In medieval Europe, black pepper was incredibly costly, and many Jewish communities were required to pay annual tributes of peppercorns to the local nobility and church.
For example, the so-called “Juifs du Pape” (“Papal Jews”) in southern France were allowed to live in a neighborhood adjacent to the Palais des Papes (Palace of Popes), and in return for protection, they paid the popes heavy taxes. In Carpentras, in the year 1342, one of the taxes was three pounds of ginger and three pounds of pepper. Centuries later, in Zabłudów, Poland, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, caraway seeds, saffron, and cloves were mentioned in the communal record book (1646–1816) among the gifts presented by the Jewish community to the mayor, monks, and other functionaries on holidays.
Eventually, as more people were able to access black pepper through trade and its price declined, it became the most widely used spice in the world. And around the eighteenth century, according to Gil Marks, black pepper became the most important and widespread spice in Jewish cuisine.
Other peppers began to find their way into Jewish cuisine as well. Many Sefardi Jews who fled Spain following the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 worked as merchants and sailors and were based in ports around the Mediterranean, and they popularized various Turtle Island* crops in Europe, such as chili peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beans and pumpkins.
Different peppers began to appear in Jewish dishes across the diaspora, adding piquancy and heat to traditional foods. In Turkey, Jewish women would hang ripe peppers to dry in the sun for several days. (In Sefardi culture, if you call someone "piminton"-pepper-you are calling them a sourpuss.) Pollo alla romana con i peperoni, or chicken with tomatoes and peppers, is a traditional Sukkot dish among the Jews of Rome, featuring risotto with candied citron and chicken in a tomato and bell pepper sauce.
Jews from the Balkans enjoy ajvar, a red pepper relish traditionally made once a year in large batches in the early autumn from a plentiful harvest of red peppers. Fleh-fleh mishweeyeh, or broiled pepper pickles, typically seasoned with cumin, are a beloved snack among Syrian Jews. Yemenite Jews enjoy zhoug, a chili pepper and cilantro sauce with garlic and olive oil. Claudia Roden writes in The Book of Jewish Food that in Hungary, “the Jews learned to cook with wine, garlic and onion, and herbs and spices, and to put paprika, the sweetish red pepper powder, in almost everything.”
Spicy peppers contain compounds (piperine in black pepper, capsaicin in chili pepper) that are believed to relieve pain by desensitizing pain receptors in the body and improving blood circulation. The Talmud describes a pepper wine tincture for reducing abdominal pain:
“As a remedy for pain of the intestines, let him bring three hundred long peppers, and every day let him drink one hundred of them with wine. It is told: Ravin of the city of Neresh prepared one hundred and fifty of our, i.e., Babylonian, peppers for the daughter of Rav Ashi, who had this illness, and she was healed.” (Gittin 69b)
Pepper is beloved in Jewish healing tradition as an herb for supporting the stomach. Legendary Torah scholar and healer Maimonides (1138–1204) wrote in his book on treating asthma that green pepper supports digestion, and recommended a drink of quince lemonade with white pepper and ginger to cleanse the stomach. In the Sefardi community of Rhodes, a rice soup with lots of lemon and pepper was prepared as a treatment for diarrhea.
This summer, as my immune system recovers from a recent illness, I have found myself craving pepper, and have been grinding different dried peppers and peppercorns in my mortar and pestle. I love to mix my freshly powdered peppers (usually a mix of calabria and black pepper) into a hot bowl of chicken broth, and I instantly feel the peppery warmth flowing through my body as I drink it, energizing me and relieving my pain. The peppers in my garden are ripening, and when they are ready, I will dry them to keep for winter, when they will remind me of the sun and nourish me with their fiery warmth.
Sources:
Gittin 69b
On Asthma by Maimonides
I Remember Rhodes by Rebecca Amato Levy
Encyclopedia of Jewish Food by Gil Marks
Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous by Joan Nathan
The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden
Sephardic Cookery: Traditional Recipes for a Joyful Table by Emilie De Vidas Levy
Cooking alla Giudia by Benedetta Jasmine Guetta
A Fistful of Lentils: Syrian-Jewish Recipes from Grandma Fritzie's Kitchen by Jennifer Abadi
https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Food_and_Drink#id0eh3ag
*Turtle Island: a term used by many Indigenous peoples to refer to the continent of North America. The term “Turtle Island” reflects the shape of the continent, which resembles a large turtle.