That the jews claim to have invented ‘Tempura’ – yes you heard that right – the classic Japanese dish is probably not something you’d think of, but it is never-the-less true. (1)
The problem of course is that it is complete and utter nonsense, because it was the Portuguese who introduced the concept of tempura to Japan in the sixteenth century via Jesuit missionaries. These missionaries often ate a Portuguese dish called ‘Peixinhos da Horta’ (lit. ‘Little Fish of the Garden’) on Catholic fast days which were basically battered and deep-friend green beans that then became what we call tempura in Japan today. (2)
So, therefore tempura can’t have originated the jews.
However, the claim that the jews invented tempura appears to be a corruption of the myth that the jews invented the British national dish of ‘Fish and Chips’; (3) with jews and philo-Semites claiming that the Portuguese jews fleeing the Alhambra Decree of 1492 and the Inquisition brought the battered fried fish to the British Isles. (4)
Richard Auffrey claims that:
‘Both Portugal and Spain believed Jews were causing problems in their countries so they expelled them, and the Jews needed to resettle elsewhere. They brought variations of sikbaj with them, including when some settled in Britain. The Jews seemed to prefer the fried fish dishes, with vinegar, and they soon became popular in Britain as well. During the mid-19th century, fried potatoes started to appear in London, and Jews started pairing fried fish and chips, though making the fish warm rather than cold. They caught on so that fish & chips is considered a basic British dish.’ (5)
The problem is of course the last bit is simply untrue (6) but also the idea that ‘Sikbaj’ – from the Sassanian Empire circa 600 B.C. and actually a meat strew – (7) is the origin of the Portuguese battered fish dish is also ludicrous.
The reason why is fairly obvious in that the Romans – who after all ruled Portugal and the whole Iberian Peninsula from the second century B.C. to the fourth century A.D. (circa 600 years) – had already long invented what we’d called batter and regularly battered and then fried fish as part of the dish called ‘Scriblita’ – which is a direct ancestor of ‘Peixinhos da Horta’ and ‘Battered Fried Fish’ (aka the fish in ‘Fish and Chips’) – and the Portuguese were almost certainly just continuing on with their own version of the Roman dish in the form of ‘Peixinhos da Horta’ among other such dishes.
The other part of the myth is that the jews brought the concept to Britain; in truth this rests on absolutely nothing but surmise based on the references with one being in a 1781 British cookbook referencing ‘the Jews’ way of preserving all sorts of fish’ and Thomas Jefferson writing of also having eaten ‘fried fish in the Jewish fashion’ in London around this time. (8)
The problem of course is that proponents of this theory are connecting the two mentions without explaining what the first mention actually details, which is helpfully provided by Panikos Panayi who explains that it actually says:
‘In the first place, some of the most important English cookbooks carried recipes referring to the Jewishness of fried fish. A 1781 edition of Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain And Easy described ‘’The Jews way of preserving Salmon and all sorts of fish’‘ which involved frying in egg yolk and flour and then placing the finished product in a jar filled with oil, vinegar and spices, which will ‘’keep good a twelvemonth’‘.’ (9)
The problem here is relatively simple for proponents of the jewish connection, because Hannah Glasse isn’t saying that the battering and frying of fish is unique to jews but rather using it as part of a method to preserve fish but rather battering and frying it then – essentially – pickling it is (or is at least commonly used by jews).
This is obvious from the fact that jews aren’t frying normal white fish here but rather salmon which tells you they are two different things entirely, which in turn informs us that what Jefferson is talking about is almost certainly something entirely different to what Glasse’s cookbook is referring to.
All Jefferson is in fact saying – in essence – is that he ate fried fish in ‘the jewish fashion’ not that the jews invented said method but rather that style of food is largely associated with jews not because the jews.
However, clearing this mystery up is easy when we recognize that in 1845 Alexis Soyer wrote almost precisely this in his ‘A Shilling Cookery for the People’ where he describes the following as recipe #75:
‘Fried Fish, Jewish Fashion
This is another excellent way of frying fish, which is constantly in use by the children of Israel, and I cannot recommend it too highly.’ (10)
This is routinely cited as evidence for the ‘jewish origin of battered fish in Britain’ but this is completely dishonest because it outright ignores Soyer’s entry #72 – on the page before it – for ‘Fried Sole’ which describes deep frying sole using egg and breadcrumb (i.e. a form of batter) in oil without any reference to jews whatsoever! (11)
Similarly, entry #74 – on the same page as entry #72 - covers much the same recipe but using plaice rather than sole! (12)
There is no discernible difference between ‘Fried Fish, Jewish Fashion’ (#75) and ‘Fried Sole’ (#72) as well as ‘Fried Plaice’ (#74) but yet proponents of the ‘jews introduced battered fried fish to Britain’ theory completely and utterly ignore what their own source says; precisely because it directly contradicts their argument and suggests that – as I have argued elsewhere – (13) ‘battered fried fish’ doesn’t come from jews at all and - as is further indicated by Charles Dickens’ mention of ‘fried fish warehouses’ in his 1837 novel ‘Oliver Twist’ with no reference whatsoever ever to them being connected to jews (as one might except given the claimed narrative of this dish being closely linked to jews circa from the 1700s to mid-to-late 1800s) – that ‘fish fried in the jewish fashion’ refers not to ‘battered fried fish’ writ large (i.e., all battered fried fish) but rather a particular way of cooking ‘battered fried fish’ (or using a different type of fish) that was different to the native British methods of cooking ‘battered fried fish’ (per entries #72 and #74 in Soyer’s 1845 cookbook).
In other words the British had their own very similar ways of cooking ‘battered fried fish’ that had absolutely nothing to do with jews but because jews had their own way of doing it, which proved popular in part because it seems - per Glasse’s commentary in her 1781 cookbook – to have to do with using a different type of fish (salmon) compared to the British version which used white fish like plaice and sole (which are incidentally both used in fish and chips to this day while salmon is not).
So thus, we can see that not only is the origins of tempura absolutely nothing to do with the jews; the origin of that myth in a confusion with the alleged introduction of battered fried fish to Britain is also a complete myth based on (deliberately?) misreading its own sources.
References
(1) https://www.reddit.com/r/Jewish/comments/18q24ls/what_are_some_things_that_were_invented_by_jews/
(2) https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20170808-the-truth-about-japanese-tempura; https://guide.michelin.com/hk/en/article/features/tempura_en
(3) On this see being a rather silly bit of nonsense see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/is-the-origin-of-fish-and-chips-jewish
(4) https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/16qpiwk/inspired_by_the_post_about_how_portugal_gave/?rdt=57366
(5) https://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-origins-of-ceviche-tempura-and-fish.html
(6) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/is-the-origin-of-fish-and-chips-jewish
(7) https://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-origins-of-ceviche-tempura-and-fish.html
(8) https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/you-can-blame-portugal-for-japanese-tempura-2916045.php
(9) https://www.thejc.com/life/food/cods-gift-to-british-cuisine-xnqwkmxp
(10) http://www.teatoastandtravel.com/tag/thomas-jefferson/
(11) Alexis Soyer, 1855, [1845], ‘A Shilling Cookery for the People’, 1st Edition, George Routledge: New York, p. 27
(12) Idem.
(13) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/is-the-origin-of-fish-and-chips-jewish