What might a premodern Jewish recipe book contain? Alongside household cures, cosmetics, herbal preparations, and alchemical experiments, these handwritten collections preserved instructions for producing amulets, invoking divine names, and protecting people from illness, demons, misfortune, and the evil eye. Drawing on Hebrew and Yiddish manuscripts from Central and Eastern Europe, this lecture explores a world in which magic, medicine, religion, and practical craft were closely intertwined. It follows the makers and users of these books—from physicians and practical kabbalists to household practitioners—and asks what their extraordinary recipes reveal about everyday Jewish life, encounters with surrounding Christian cultures, and the enduring human desire to make uncertain worlds more manageable. Image : The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, Ms.