Yesterday's Mavens, Today's Foodies, the second book from the Washington State Jewish Historical Society, vividly individualizes Washington State's Jews, past and present, recalling the foods they ate, who prepared them, and who joined them in their kitchens and at their dining tables. Along with the recipes are more than a hundred poignant memoirs that reveal the origins and beliefs of this diverse Jewry.

The first wave of pioneers, Ashkenazim, came from elsewhere in the United States, Eastern Europe and Germany. Sephardim, evicted from Spain in 1492, began to settle in Washington State in the early twentieth century, still speaking Ladino, and adamantly adhering to Sephardic culinary customs and rituals. For decades, each group clung to its own practices until their offspring began to marry and add their mates' Jewish foods to their menus. In the new millennium, contemporary Jewish foodies adapt family recipes or create dishes of their own, using ingredients rarely, if ever, found on Jewish tables.

If you're as moved as I am by the candor of the contributors, you'll want to read the book.