Cooking alla Giudia: A Celebration of the Jewish Food of Italy. Thursday, April 7, 7 PM. Presented by Benedetta Jasmine Guetta. IIC San Francisco - 710 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94111. Click here to register. Click here to purchase the book 

From Roman deep-fried artichokes (carciofi alla giudia) to Venetian sweet-and-sour sardines (sarde in saor), Apulian orecchiette pasta, and Sicilian caponata, some of Italy’s best-known dishes are Jewish in origin. But most people know little about Italy’s Jews and their culinary traditions.  It was Jews, for example, who taught Italians to eat eggplant, and thus helped inspire the classic eggplant parmigiana and many other local specialties.