Nigella Lawson’s Haroset from the Venetian Ghetto

I suppose it’s as well to start with the premise that there is no such thing as Jewish food. This of course begets the wider political assertion that there is no such thing as a Jewish race. Faith is not the decider, and cultur­ally, geographically, physically, Jews are too dispersed and just too different to be contained within any one definition. But perhaps it’s simpler to stick with the eating: depending on descent, the food any one group of Jews eats will be radically different from another. The supper here has a decidedly Sephardic slant, that’s to say the recipes will be more familiar to those who have either Spanish or Middle-Eastern origins. And, actu­ally, even the dietary restrictions differ: Sephardi Jews eat rice and pulses at Passover; Ashkenazi Jews are for­bidden. I’ve tried to formulate recipes suitable for either.

This haroset comes via Venice; in Britain and the United States, and for most of the world, in fact, you’d be more likely to come across a plainer version, made with apples, walnuts, cinnamon, red wine and some sugar or honey. This one is rich and sumptuous, and I relish it for much more than its symbolic prop­erties. I don’t want it as just the ritual precursor of the meal, but daubed on the lamb, or indeed whatever I’m eating, as a sort of multi-fruited and chestnutty confit.