Podcast Summary: Susan Weingarten, "Ancient Jewish Food in its Geographical and Cultural Contexts: What’s Cooking in the Talmuds?"

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Renee Garfinkel
Guest: Dr. Susan Weingarten
Date: December 13, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores the deep and delicious world of ancient Jewish food as reconstructed from rabbinic texts and archaeology, centered around Susan Weingarten’s new book, Ancient Jewish Food in Its Geographical and Cultural Contexts: What’s Cooking in the Talmuds? The discussion peels back the layers of history to reveal how food in late antiquity was not just about nutrition, but also about identity, status, memory, and a porous exchange with neighboring Roman, Persian, and Arab cultures. Weingarten also discusses the challenges of reconstructing ancient diets, the social meanings of foods, culinary experimentation, and her previous work on charoset.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origins of the Project (03:24–06:09)

• Spark for the Research:
  Dr. Weingarten shared how her interest was piqued by an academic claim that little is known about food preparation in late antiquity—an assertion she refutes due to the richness of Talmudic sources, especially those concerning Sabbath food laws.

  "This learned professor... has obviously never opened the Babylonian Talmud in her life... where it's very important to know exactly how food is prepared because you want to know whether you're allowed to do certain activities on the Sabbath or not."
  — Susan Weingarten, 03:48

• The Scholarly Gap:
  Much of the prior research had not gone beyond early 20th-century German scholarship. Weingarten saw an opportunity to explore untouched culinary material, noting parallels with research on Greek, Roman, and early Arab cookery.

Kosher Laws vs. Cultural Reality (06:09–08:11)

• Beyond Kashrut:
  Kosher laws are only one aspect of ancient Jewish food culture; everyday practices, sharing, and curiosity were equally important. She gives an example from rabbinic literature describing women's curiosity about neighbors' cooking—a sign of how information flowed.

  "There's a beautiful example where they say women are insatiable... if a woman goes out and leaves her pot in the charge of her neighbor while it's still cooking, then you can be sure that she's going to lift the lid and see what's happening inside..."
  — Susan Weingarten, 06:37

Combining Textual and Archaeological Evidence (08:11–10:40)

• Challenges:
  Weingarten discusses the difficulty of distinguishing prescriptive from descriptive elements in rabbinic sources, and how archaeology can clarify ambiguities—such as the identification of grain types.

  "In the archaeological record, we get plenty of wheat and barley, but almost no oats, and... maybe just one grain of rye. So... perhaps it wasn't oats and rye. Perhaps... different forms of wheat and barley..."
  — Susan Weingarten, 09:24

Food and Social Status (10:40–13:19)

• Class Distinctions:
  Food was a clear indicator of wealth and status:

  • Wheat vs. Barley: Wheat bread, twice as expensive, was the food of the rich; barley was for the poor or even used as punishment rations in the Roman army.

  • Meat: In land-poor Palestine, meat was rare and reserved for special occasions. In contrast, Babylonian Jews, benefiting from fertile land, consumed more meat.

    "Wheat was priced on the market at twice the rate of barley. It was considered... much better... wheat bread rises, whereas barley... makes very heavy bread. And this was considered...punishment rations..."
    — Susan Weingarten, 10:55

    "Ordinary people probably didn't eat very much meat... if you killed a cow, you were not only getting rid of a cow, but... a work animal. So it was something that people did very rarely..."
    — Susan Weingarten, 11:47

Cultural Exchange Through Food (14:01–16:52)

• Bread and Dips:
  Bread dominated the diet. To make it less monotonous, people from different regions dipped their bread into various sauces, reflecting cultural transmission:

  • In Roman Palestine: Fermented fish sauce (garum, murias, alek) was widely consumed, mirroring Roman practices.
  • In Babylonia: Fish sauce was less popular; instead, people used fermented barley and milk sauce (kutach), drawing from local resources and Persian influence.

  "It's clear to me anyway, from the Talmudic literature that there were different sort of dips in different places...people took on the Roman, Greco Roman habit of dipping their bread into a fermented fish sauce...When it came to Babylonia...the only thing to do with that barley sauce, which was called kutach...is to spit it out."
  — Susan Weingarten, 14:13; 15:40

The Lens of Food Compared to Other Lenses (19:00–24:25)

• Food as Political and Social Statement:
  Weingarten draws parallels between ancient foodways and political, cultural patterns (e.g., Greeks and Romans mocking Persian luxury), and how Jewish elites mirrored surrounding empires in conspicuous consumption.

  "The Greeks...satirized the Persian habits of very luxurious living...You do get echoes of this in the Talmudic literature. They tell us that the patriarch, the head of the Jewish community...had the same sort of food on his table as the emperor..."
  — Susan Weingarten, 19:30–21:30

  "You get an echo of the rivalry between Greece and Rome and Persia in the rivalry between the heads of the Jewish community...in the food that they had on their tables."
  — Susan Weingarten, 23:30

Recreating Ancient Food (24:25–34:07)

• Personal Insights:
  Studying ancient food changed Weingarten’s perspective—even making her appreciate that enjoyment of food is a luxury not always available in history.

  "Studying ancient food...made me understand that you really don't have to enjoy food, you have to eat it and you need it to live on. But enjoyment is an extra."
  — Susan Weingarten, 24:52

• Culinary Experiments:
  Weingarten describes:

  • Making a "mustard foam" from wild mustard seeds with her grandchildren, using techniques hinted at in Talmudic and Arab sources
  • Attempting to replicate Roman fish sauce (garum)—only to be bested by maggots due to a too-loose cloth covering.

  "I collected wild mustard...and made a mustard foam, which was great fun...On the way, I discovered again, the sort of things that the ancient sources don't tell you..."
  — Susan Weingarten, 26:33

  "We cut it up and put it with salt and did everything...but you need to tie the cloth very tightly to make sure flies don't get in. And flies got in and the whole fermenting mass got full of maggots. And the smell was unbelievable."
  — Susan Weingarten, 32:20

• Modern Equivalents:
  You can buy modern fermented fish sauces (like "Red Boat" from the Far East) that use ancient-style processes and are even kosher-certified.

The Charoset Book and Connecting Projects (34:39–36:43)

• Scope of Previous Work:
  Weingarten’s earlier book on charoset is temporally broader (covering the food’s history from antiquity to today) and geographically wider than her Talmudic study—documenting charoset recipes across Jewish communities worldwide.

  "With haroset, I took one very limited subject, but it's much broader than the Talmudic book in that it goes all through history...So it was broader temporally...but I also dealt...with people from all over the world..."
  — Susan Weingarten, 34:53–36:32

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On reconstructing ancient recipes:

  "It's absolutely impossible to reproduce everything exactly...A lot of things would have had different tastes. So you just can't exactly reproduce them."
  — Weingarten, 25:39

• On social meaning of food:

  "Wheat bread rises...whereas barley has very little gluten and doesn't rise so quickly...In the Roman army, at least, [barley] was considered...punishment rations. But it's what the poor subsisted on."
  — Weingarten, 11:00

• On cross-cultural flavors:

  "The only thing to do with that barley sauce, which was called kutach, the only thing to do with Babylonian kuttach, is to spit it out. They didn't like each other's typical foods."
  — Weingarten, 15:53

• On the challenges of food archaeology:

  "[The ancient sources] don't tell you...if you allow [the mustard pods] to dry...they were very easy to break up...but it's the sort of thing that you do learn from experience."
  — Weingarten, 27:48

• On culinary failure:

  "We didn't have the right tools...the whole fermenting mass got full of maggots. And the smell was unbelievable..."
  — Weingarten, 32:40

Suggested Listen-By-Timestamp

• [03:24] — Research Spark and Scholarly Background
• [06:32] — Beyond Kosher: Everyday Food Practice
• [08:11] — Integrating Texts & Archaeology
• [10:40] — Socioeconomics of Ancient Diets
• [14:01] — Cross-Cultural Foodways (Roman Palestine vs. Babylonian Jewish practice)
• [19:00] — Food as Political and Social Mirror
• [24:25] — Personal Impact & Experimental Archaeology
• [34:39] — Charoset Project and Broader Research Context

Conclusion

This episode gives a vivid, scholarly, and at times humorous account of ancient Jewish culinary life. It challenges the notion of a timeless, sealed-off Jewish food tradition, instead showing that Jewish food was a product of its time—shaped by economics, gendered knowledge, class, neighboring cultures, and changing historical circumstances. The dialogue is rich with lived experiment and peppered with memorable failures and illuminating discoveries, offering new perspectives for both food historians and curious eaters.