A crypto-Jewish Passover

by Ari LeVaux

While dining at a Mexican restaurant in Albuquerque, I was shocked to eat something that reminded of my mom’s East Coast Jewish cooking. I had taken a chance on a bowl of meatball soup called albóndigas, as it was a dish I’d never heard of and I was feeling adventurous. I was delivered a bowl of mildly aromatic broth with chunks of carrot, celery, zucchini and a single large beef meatball. My first bite of that meatball, the albóndiga as it were, transported me back to the Jewish holidays. The spongy, ethereal texture and its mellow, satisfying flavor reminded me vaguely, but unmistakably, of mom’s matzo balls. Of course, matzo balls don’t contain meat. But part of their magic is a springy, fleshy quality. This Mexican meatball had this in spades.

The menu noted that the lamb chop entrée is the owner’s favorite, and when she stopped at my table, I asked her why this was so. She explained that lamb remind her of the farm where she grew up, in Southern New Mexico. They raised a lot of animals, but rarely ate the pigs. She speculated it’s because her grandmother was Jewish. I asked if she’d ever heard of matzo balls; she hadn’t.

Such conjecture of Jewish ancestry is common in the Southwest. There is widespread talk of a population of covert Jews that settled there long ago. These crypto-Jews, as they’re called, trace their roots to late-1300s Spain, during a fierce wave of anti-Semitism. Thousands of Jews were murdered or expelled. Thousands more converted to Christianity, sometimes by force, sometimes by choice to escape persecution. Many of the conversos, as the recent converts were called, continued to covertly practice Judaism. Some of them are thought to have migrated to the New World with Spanish colonists and settled along the border between Texas and Novo Leon, Mexico. From there, they spread throughout the Southwest.

In cemeteries there are graves with Stars of David carved into the headstones, along with Jewish sounding names. There are reports of slaughter practices that sound suspiciously Jewish, of grandparents who refused to work on Saturdays, and proclaiming their Jewishness from their deathbeds. Curiously, there are few examples of these practices being overtly passed along. As if being Jewish was a dangerous burden the crypto-Jews didn’t wish on their families. Or perhaps they didn’t even know why they were following these rituals.

The notion of a crypto-Jewish population in the Southwest is hardly a consensus. Many historians find the evidence circumstantial, flimsy at best, and explainable by other means. A scarcity of hard evidence, while frustrating, is also understandable, writes Stanley Hordes, who has become one of the preeminent scholars in support of the idea. In his book To the End of the Earth, he writes: “The biggest challenge in completing a study of this kind was determining the history of a group of people who for centuries tried desperately to cover their tracks.”

Hordes first became interested in the crypto-Jews when, as the state historian of New Mexico, he received a lot of visitors who wished to look into their genealogy for possible Jewishness. Like the woman that served me albóndigas, various clues caused them to suspect they might have Jewish ancestry. Hordes also received gossipy visitors who wondered about their neighbors’ strange habits, such as lighting candles on Friday evenings or chanting in a strange language, sometimes even while at church.

Does this mean that those fluffy albóndigas are actually crypto-matzo balls? Probably not.

The word albóndigas is thought to be derived from the Arabic “al-bunduq,” which means “hazelnut” but is generally used to refer to round objects. Balls, as it were. Albóndigas are thought to have originated as Berber or Arab dishes that made their way to Spain when Muslims ruled the country. So, yeah, not exactly a Jewish thing.

In Mexican albóndigas, the starchy binder used to hold the meatballs together is usually rice or corn-based, not matzo meal. But that doesn’t mean matzo can’t be used.

I played around with various recipes for both albóndigas and matzo balls – including a matzo ball recipe that incorporated leeks and potatoes. After several rounds of tests, I came up with the following recipe for Crypto-Matzo Balls.

These are denser than typical matzo balls, thanks primarily to the meat, but they will nonetheless float in the soup, like a matzo ball should. Thanks to their matzo meal they are lighter than a typical meatball, but meatier than a matzo ball.

The recipe uses pecans, in a nod to the original crypto-Jewish community along the lower Rio Grande, on the Tex/Mex border.

Crypto-Matzo Balls

1 lb meat (raw ground beef or lamb, or shredded cooked chicken)

1 large leek, minced

2 cups potatoes, diced

2 large eggs, beaten

1 cup matzo meal

3 cloves garlic, minced, pressed or crushed

1½ teaspoons salt

2 cups unsalted chicken stock

4 tablespoons pecans, crushed

A pinch of cumin

Add the leeks to the stock in a saucepan, and simmer until the liquid is nearly gone. Meanwhile, steam the potatoes until soft. Puree potatoes and leeks (and what little stock remains) together in a blender or food processor.

In a bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients, along with the potato leek puree. Shape them into balls. Drop them into soup, preferably my mom’s chicken soup. Simmer for 30 minutes and serve. Remove un-eaten crypto-matzo balls and store separately, so they don’t get too mushy.

For a further Southwest feel, add some red chile powder to the chicken soup. But please, don’t tell my mom.