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The deep-frying of some kind of white fish, tossed in a flour batter, can probably be linked to Portuguese Sephardic Jewish refugees who came to Britain as far back as the sixteenth century. The most famous of these – which has become a common piece of ‘Did You Know?’ pub trivia – is the notion that ‘fish and chips is actually Jewish’.

There are Jewish culinary presences in the mainstream of British life that you could be forgiven for overlooking: mediocre, shelf-stable bagels in grab bags called something like ‘All-American Hollywood Empire State Bagel’ chicken noodle soup as a homely curative gleaming orange belts of smoked salmon in the supermarket stout jars of gherkins in vinegar a slab of baked cheesecake or apple strudel lurking behind the more flamboyant pastries in a cafe the unexpected salt-beef-and-parsley pie I bought from a food van at a lower-league football match. American–Jewish food is a vernacular cuisine and a source of proud civic identity in New York, bursting out from its many world-famous kosher and Jewish-style delis, while in the UK we have matzo ball soup wearing a disguise and hoping to go undetected on the menu at The Wolseley (‘Chicken Soup with Dumplings – £10.95’). It has long been right here, and yet it never really gets noticed. This is surprising only because it has long been right here, hiding on shelves, in cookery shows and on menus of non-kosher restaurants and cafes, constantly adapting and assimilating, ducking from the low murmur of antisemitism and a historic distrust of foreign food. We talk surprisingly little about Jewish food in this country.

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