Fania's World of Flavors, Smells, and Colors

Co-sponsored by American Friends of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Polish Cultural Institute New York 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. Buy Fania Lewando’s The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook. Andrzej Ciecierski is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer for Polish Television. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is University Professor Emerita and Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University. She is currently the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 15 West 16th Street, NYC Located in the Center for Jewish History Directions & Parking Doors open 30 minutes before the start of the program. All public programs are wheelchair accessible. A limited number of assistive listening devices are available for deaf and hard of hearing individuals upon request (Auditorium events only). For questions about this program, please contact: [email protected]