BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID://WordPress//Event-Post-V5.9.2//EN
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/Warsaw
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
DTSTART:19700329T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:CET
DTSTART:19701025T030000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Fania's World of Flavors, Smells, and Colors
UID:https://instytutpolski.pl/newyork/2026/09/11/fanias-world-of-flavors-smells-and-colors/
LOCATION:
DTSTAMP:20261123
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20261123
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20271123
DESCRIPTION:Monday, November 23, 2026 7:00 PMYIVO15 W. 16th St., New York, NY
10011Admission: $15YIVO members & students: $10Tickets
The documentary Fania’s World of Flavors, Smells, and Colors tells the
story of Fania Lewando, a Polish Jewish woman born in 1886 in Kowal. Before
World War II, she ran the popular Dietojarska Jadłodajnia in Vilnius,
where she served vegetarian specialties rooted in Ashkenazi cuisine. She
combined unusual flavors with a focus on healthy cooking, believing that a
meat-free diet rich in vitamins was essential to good health. Her culinary
talents became widely known and admired, attracting prominent visitors,
including the young and then little-known Marc Chagall.
Lewando was also the only woman invited to serve as a chef aboard the
Polish ocean liner M/S Batory, where she prepared kosher meals for the
ship’s passengers. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, she
published a cookbook in Yiddish and Polish editions featuring 400
vegetarian recipes.
Tragically, the outbreak of the war brought Lewando’s international
career to an abrupt end. In 1941, Fania Lewando and her husband perished,
and her cookbook was lost amid the chaos of the war. Decades later, a copy
was unexpectedly discovered at an antiquarian book fair. Translated into
English by YIVO in New York, the cookbook became a bestseller and has since
been published in Lithuanian, Polish, and Czech.
Join us for the New York premiere of this documentary followed by a Q&A
with director Andrzej Ciecierski, moderated by Barbara
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.
Beautifully translated for a new generation of devotees of delicious and
healthy eating: a groundbreaking, mouthwatering vegetarian cookbook
originally published in Yiddish in pre–World War II Vilna and
miraculously rediscovered more than half a century later.In 1938, Fania
Lewando, the proprietor of a popular vegetarian restaurant in Vilna,
published a Yiddish vegetarian cookbook unlike any that had come before.
Its 400 recipes ranged from traditional Jewish dishes (kugel, blintzes,
fruit compote, borscht) to vegetarian versions of Jewish holiday staples
(tsholent, kishke, schnitzel) to appetizers, soups, main courses, and
desserts that introduced vegetables and fruits that had not traditionally
been part of the repertoire of the Jewish homemaker (Chickpea Cutlets,
Jerusalem Artichoke Soup; Leek Frittata; Apple Charlotte with Whole Wheat
Breadcrumbs). Also included were impassioned essays by Lewando and by a
physician about the benefits of vegetarianism. Accompanying the recipes
were lush full-color drawings of vegetables and fruit that had originally
appeared on bilingual (Yiddish and English) seed packets. Lewando's
cookbook was sold throughout Europe.Lewando and her husband died during
World War II, and it was assumed that all but a few family-owned and
archival copies of her cookbook vanished along with most of European Jewry.
But in 1995 a couple attending an antiquarian book fair in England came
upon a copy of Lewando's cookbook. Recognizing its historical value, they
purchased it and donated it to YIVO. Enchanted by the book's contents and
by its backstory, YIVO commissioned a translation of the book that will
make Lewando's charming, delicious, and practical recipes available to an
audience beyond the wildest dreams of the visionary woman who created them.

A Polish edition of the book is also available here.
The event is co-sponsored by American Friends of POLIN Museum of the
History of Polish Jews and Polish Cultural Institute New York
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR