M. G. Saphir, Jewish Cuisine's First Food Writer

This article looks at the evolution of Jewish food writing (as opposed to cookbook writing) by examining the work of M G Saphir whose writings celebrate jewish food in Central and Eastern Europe from the mid-19th century on and explores the culture in which this arose. Saphir played a pioneering role with his earliest piece on Jewish cuisine, published in 1840, which is only a few sentences long, but nevertheless of great historical importance, since it represents the first press review of a Jewish cookbook.