The flavors of Jewish Italian cuisine are potent and specific, filling hundreds and hundreds of pages in cookbooks this year and next — even though the size of the culinary community has been shrinking in size since the early modern era. 27,000 Jews live in Italy, according to the most recent census data, stewarding their foodways and culture.

“To give a sense of proportion, that is roughly the same number of Jews who reside in, for example, Minneapolis or Milwaukee,” author Benedetta Jasmine Guetta writes in her cookbook. “Neither of which is a particularly Jewish city.” If you’ve had Jewish Italian classics like stuffed turkey meatloaf, zuppa di pesce, or sarde in saor (preserved Venetian sardines), then you’ve had some of this amazing cuisine.