This talk examines the ways that the 20th century cookbook, The Way to a Man’s Heart: The SettlementCook Book, became a beloved Jewish icon. Filled with non-kosher recipes, the cookbook has been called “unabashedly Jewish” and “a Jewish Joy of Cooking” by generations of reviewers and cooks, yet dismissed as Jewish “by association only” by some historians. Nevertheless, the heirloom quality of this book transcended generations leading to the perception of the book as a Jewish, albeit not Judaic, standard. Rubel will analyze the ways in which a cookbook can be coded as Jewish, despite having no direct references to Jews or Judaism. 

Leonard Gilman Lecture on Jewish Culture: “Recipes for the Melting Pot: Reading The Settlement Cook Book”  with Nora Rubel 
Wednesday, March 11, 5-6:30 p.m. 
MSU Main Library, 366 W. Circle Dr. Green Room (4th floor, West Wing) 

Nora Rubel, Chair of the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester, teaches and writes on a wide variety of topics related to gender, race, and ethnicity in American religion, particularly in relation to food and popular culture. She is the author of Doubting the Devout: The Ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish AmericanImagination(Columbia University Press 2009), co-editor of Religion, Food and Eating in North America (CUP 2014) and Blessings Beyond the Binary: Transparent and the Queer Jewish Family (Rutgers University Press 2024). Her latest book, Recipes for the Melting Pot: The Lives of The SettlementCook Book is due out from Columbia University Press in Spring of 2026. 

Head of Special Collections Leslie McRoberts will offer a popup display of The SettlementCook Book editions and related items for viewing at the event. 

For parking information visit http://maps.msu.edu/interactive. 
Persons with disabilities may request accommodations by emailing lib.dl.accessibility@msu.edu.