"Ha'yode'im" to "Ha'yode'ot": Unpacking Food and Female Authority in Sefer Ahavat Nashim

• In Event: The Sephardic Mediterranean from the 13th to the 16th Century

Abstract

The thirteenth-century magical-medical manual Sefer Ahavat Nashim (Book of Women’s Love) draws upon a variety of knowledge bases in its recipes for the care and beautification of women. Including remedies for everything from love spells to hair removal to womb quickening, the manual – found as part of the Catalonian-Provençal codex Sefer Kabbalah (Book of Practical Kabbalah), a 15th century copy of which is found in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurentziana (Plut.44.22) – names a veritable pantheon of Classical and Islamic authorities of medieval medicine, like Galen and al-Zawhari, as well as of the Jewish exegetical and mystical traditions, such as the Sages of Babylon and Rabbi Moses ben Nachman. Through this medical citing, the manual simultaneously builds upon the cross-Mediterranean circulation of medical knowledge through the movement of manuscripts and establishes the important role of Sephardic Jews in maintaining the continuity of healing practice and prestige from al-Andalus to the northern territories of Iberia. But the recipes included also bely another deeply significant aspect of medieval medical knowledge, upon which my talk will focus: namely, Sephardic women’s culinary expertise. Indeed, the manuscript can be read not only for its most-likely male compiler’s clever gathering and juxtaposition of sources of medical understanding, but also as a relation of female knowledge of the selection, preparation, and administration of edible ingredients towards desired ends of love, eroticism, and healing. Through a close reading of the recipes in Sefer Ahavat Nashim, contextualized by a discussion of medieval Sephardic culinary and herbal practices, my talk will demonstrate the importance of this food-based knowledge as a means of accessing Sephardic women’s culinary knowhow and authority.

Author

• Sara Gardner, University of Minnesota