Ten years ago I was a judge on the Jewish Quarterly Prize. We had two awards to give away, one for a novel, the other for a work of non-fiction. At our very first meeting the non-fiction prize was decided – a landmark work which will still be read in a century and which had taken the author a decade to research. To say that every Jewish home should have a copy of Claudia Roden’s Book of Jewish Food is to do an injustice to the scale of the achievement. The history of the Jews and the Jewish Diaspora told through eating. How much more central to Jewish identity can you get? Roden traces the wanderings of the Jewish people from country to country, bringing with them dishes from the past, which then become incorporated into the new national cuisine. As English as fish and chips? No. The frying of fish and potatoes was brought to London by Portuguese Jews at the end of the nineteenth century. We see how Jews adapted the dietary laws to the locally available ingredients. Quiche Lorraine, made with bacon and cream, was forbidden to French Jews, so they made an onion tart which is now considered to be the traditional dish of Alsace-Lorraine. Locally, it’s known as a Jewish dish. So this is a history book with recipes, beautifully written and illustrated. You can pick it up and read a description of a Jewish community on every page, and learn what they ate, when they ate it and how they prepared it. It sits alongside the Torah and Talmud for me.