All Consuming

An engaging 700-year history of meat at the intersection of German and Jewish culture, uniquely illuminating the rich, fraught, and tragic history of German Jewry.

In Judaism, meat is of paramount importance as it constitutes the very focal point of the dietary laws. With an intricate set of codified regulations concerning forbidden and permissible meats, highly prescribed methods of killing, and elaborate rules governing consumption, meat is one of the most visible, and gustatory, markers of Jewish distinctness and social separation. It is an object of tangible, touchable, and tastable difference like no other.

In All Consuming, historian John M. Efron focuses on the contested culture of meat and its role in the formation of ethnic identities in Germany. To an extent not seen elsewhere in Europe, Germans have identified, thought about, studied, decried, and gladly eaten meat understood to be "Jewish." Expressions of this engagement are found across the cultural landscape—in literature, sculpture, and visual arts—and evident in legal codes and commercial enterprises. Likewise, Jews in Germany have vigorously defended their meats and the culture and rituals surrounding them by educating Germans and Jews alike about their meaning and relevance.

Exploring a cultural history that extends some seven hundred years, from the Middle Ages to today, Efron goes beyond a discussion of dietary laws and ritual slaughter to take a broad view of what meat can tell us about German-Jewish identity and culinary culture, Jewish and Christian religious sensibilities, and religious freedom for minorities in Germany. In so doing, he provides a singular window into the rich, fraught, and ultimately tragic history of German Jewry.

"Anyone interested in food and identity will learn much from All Consuming. John Efron offers an absorbing, finely researched book, charting the unexpected twists and turns in understanding of Jewishness and meat in Germany over the past half millennium." —Rachel Laudan, author of Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History

"In this masterfully written book, readers will find a new key to the modern Jewish experience. More than a food history, All Consuming reveals the everyday lives of German Jews, what kept them apart from their Christian neighbors—and what bound them together. Eminent historian John Efron tells the story of German Jews from an entirely new perspective." —Michael Brenner, author of In Hitler's Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism

"All Consuming goes beyond sauerbraten and sausage to detail how Germany's historic Jewish communities turned beef, rather than pork, into delicious dishes that traveled throughout Europe. John Efron makes meat a fascinating lens through which to view culture, history, and gastronomy. Bravo." —Joan Nathan, author of King Solomon's Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World