READING NOOK

By looking back thousands of years to trace global influences on Jewish cuisine, venerable cookbook author Joan Nathan discovered a lesson for today. She found that what we think of as Jewish food, from the matzo ball to the bagel, tells a larger story of expulsions, wanderings and explorations across borders. In other words, immigration.

Her new volume, King Solomon’s Table (Knopf, 382 pages, $35), traces the

path of Jewish migration throughout the world since biblical times. As Jews moved through the diaspora, whether as merchants or as refugees, they brought with them ingredients and techniques that got baked into ever-evolving world cuisines, and transformed their pantries with Indian spices, Italian produce, Sumerian beans and New Mexican chiles.

Human migration has had a profound influence on food over eons. And yet, as the United States and other countries move to limit immigration and acceptance of refugees, every cuisine stands to lose a bit of flavor, Nathan said.

“We’re going to have a dark age of cuisine if we don’t have any more immigrants,” said Nathan, a two-time James Beard Award winner, whose 1994 book Jewish Cooking in America was recently named a culinary classic by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. With recipes for curries, cookies and five kinds of haroset — the fruit paste on the Passover Seder plate that symbolizes the mortar Jewish slaves mixed in ancient Egypt — Nathan tells a story that’s weightier than her recipes’ measurements.