Cara De Silva, a food writer and culinary historian who published a book of recipes preserved by Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, has died at the age of 83, according to the New York Times.
De Silva’s book “In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy From the Women of Terezin” – a collection of recipes that were saved by Jews deported to the death camp – was a bestseller to the surprise of many.
“In Memory’s Kitchen” contains the remembrances of the Jewish dishes the women at Theresienstadt cooked and ate before the Holocaust.
“The feeling that I was tasting the food of their dreams was profoundly overwhelming and moving,” the author told New York Jewish Week in 2014. “It was the materialization of something they could only dream and remember, and it was in my mouth and in the mouths of others. We were celebrating them by celebrating their food.”
A lifelong resident of Manhattan, De Silva, who was born Carol Eileen Krawetz in 1939, worked as a freelance writer for the New York Times and the food, wine and travel publication Saveur.
While she largely focused on Italy’s culinary history and the way it changed American foods, she nonetheless had a soft spot for Eastern European and Ashkenazi dishes as the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland, according to the report.
In the early 1990s, De Silva wrote a Newsday column titled “Flavor of the Neighborhood,” in which she highlighted obscure New York delis among other lesser known eateries.