As the
Jewish diaspora grew with Jewish migrations into Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East and Central Asia, Jewish diaspora communities developed different Sabbath stews and other foodstuffs based on the local climate, available ingredients and local influence.
Early traces Jews living in Israel before the destruction of the Second Temple likely ate the Mediterranean Triad: grain, oil and wine, which were available at low cost and vast amounts. While both wheat and barley were grown in Israel, barley was more likely to supplement the inland. Cooper argues wheat would have been twice as expensive as barley which could grow in rougher soils closer to Jerusalem. Shabbat stews of the Bukharian Jews and Mizrahi Jews in the Asian Central Steppe who trace their diaspora to Babylonian exile have the most distinct versions of shabbat stews that relate closest to their non-Jewish neighbors and often resembled the closed proposed ingredients and methods to the original
harisa.
Harisa Harisa is mentioned by Ibn Al Karim in
Kitab Al-Tabikh as early as the seventh century. In the anecdotal cookbook, the ''Umayyad Caliph, Mu'awiya,'' returns from a trip to Arabia after returning to his newly won Persian lands. In some versions of the story, Mu'awiya is met with some Yemenite Jews whom he asks to prepare the porridge he tasted abroad while in other versions, he approaches locals. This story should be taken with a grain of salt as the author penned the story three centuries after it supposedly occurred. At the very least, harisa was prevalent as a Levantine dish.
Hamin Hamin emerged as a dish when
Sephardic chefs began to experiment with adding
chickpeas or
beans and more water to
harisa, a traditional
Middle Eastern porridge of cracked
durum wheat berries, to create a more liquidy bean stew. The ingredients of
hamin changed again in the 14th century, as famine in Northern Europe caused a fall in cattle rearing and increase in chicken and egg production, leading to
huevos haminados to be introduced to the Sephardic Sabbath stew. Following the 1492
expulsion of the Jews from Spain,
hamin adapted to other local ingredients and seasonings, incorporating spices such as
cinnamon,
paprika,
saffron and
turmeric. The influx of new ingredients from
South America in the 16th century meanwhile resulted in
white beans often substituting
fava beans, and
white potatoes,
sweet potatoes,
pumpkin and
red chillies being added in some recipes.
Cholent The origins of
cholent date back to the 11th century, when the Christian
Reconquista of
Al-Andalus or
Islamic Spain, when culinary techniques from the Moorish period spread northwards into Europe through
Provence. In the late 12th or early 13th century, the Sephardic Sabbath stew known as
hamin became a part of the traditions of the Jews of France. By the 13th century, the stew is described as having become widespread in Bohemia and Germany. Originally made with
fava beans, the
cholent of the French Ashkenazi was substituted with dried
haricot beans from the
Americas in the sixteenth century. Since then,
white beans,
red kidney beans,
pinto beans and dried
lima beans have all become common ingredients. Some Romanians add
chickpeas in "a remnant of the
Sephardic influence due to
Ottoman control of the area". =="Blech" cooking==