Xaver suppe, or Xavier soup, is an Italian dish traditionally served on 3 December, the Feast of Saint Xavier. My character Caterina is Italian, and very familiar with this food. Being kosher, she has to make some modifications, since the true recipe uses both chicken broth and lots of dairy products!
Recipe (source: Cooking With the Saints, by Ernst Schuegraf, Ignatius Press, 2001):
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped (for dough)
12 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons chervil, chopped
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped (for soup)
Over low heat, work the flour, cream, butter, and Parmesan into a solid dough. Work in the salt, pepper, nutmeg, eggs, yolks, and parsley. Put the mixture into a piping bag with a big nozzle and pipe pea-sized balls onto a buttered tray. Let stand for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, heat some salted water until it boils, then drop in all the “dough peas.” Cook for 5 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and add to the warm chicken stock. Season soup to taste and add the chervil and 2 tablespoons parsley. Serves 10 to 12 people.
To make it kosher or vegetarian, simply use vegetable broth. For a vegan version, use non-dairy butter, your favorite vegan Parmesan, non-dairy milk in place of the cream, and your egg substitute of choice, equivalent to one egg and one egg yolk.
Xoriatiki Salata is a dish many people are familiar with. It’s Greek salad, made with ingredients which can include:
Feta
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Red and/or green peppers
Spinach
Olives
Lemon juice
Onions (which I always skip or pull out!)
Olive oil
Sea salt
Oregano
Red wine vinegar
Non-traditional ingredients some people enjoy adding:
Chickpeas (I love them!)
Baby corn
Bok choi
Avocado (I love adding it!)
Mushrooms (particularly Portobello!)
Dried cranberries
Walnuts
Pine nuts
Slivered almonds
There’s no one set recipe, since you can add as much or as little of each as you prefer. Maybe you love extra feta and tomatoes, but don’t care so much for olives and cucumbers. You might hate onions as I do, and so never include them by choice. And though it’s not traditional, you can add extras like avocado and chickpeas.
While my characters are staying in a vacation apartment in Florence over Chanukah 1945, Caterina tosses an extra-large Xoriatiki Salata for the days they’ll have dairy meals. This is a dish many people serve during Chanukah, not just those of Greek descent, because of the feta. It’s traditional to eat dairy and foods fried in oil during Chanukah, because of their symbolic relationship to the holiday’s origins.
During the time of the Maccabean Revolt, Judith famously beheaded General Holofernes. She fed him very salty cheeses which made him thirsty, and then got him drunk. Once he was asleep, she cut off his head and displayed it to the Greeks. They fled in panic and disarray. Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi frequently painted this subject. In the most famous painting, she modelled Judith after herself and Holofernes after Agostino Tassi, a friend of her father who raped her and whom she was gutsy enough to bring to court.
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