Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sundown Sept. 18, with a festive meal of traditional dishes.

One almost universally followed tradition dictates serving a round (not braided and oblong) challah made with raisins, and dipping a slice of apple in honey to symbolize hope that the coming year will be sweet.

But other traditional recipes and ingredients are largely dictated by the point of emigration for each family's ancestors.

Just as Jewish history is a story of expulsion and migration, Jewish cuisine incorporates ingredients, spices, and cooking styles from lands where Jewish communities once flourished.

In broad terms, Ashkenazim, who make up the bulk of Philadelphia's Jewish population, fled from France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and other parts of Eastern Europe; Sephardim from the Iberian Peninsula, the Caribbean, South America, and North Africa; and Mizrachim the Middle East.

But those lines are blurry, especially between Sephardim and Mizrachim. And everywhere they lived, Jewish cooks adapted the local cuisines that abutted their own, creating delicious hybrids.

The biggest shift in American Jewish cuisine has occurred gradually in recent years as people with Ashkenazic roots began to appreciate the flavors and health benefits of Sephardic recipes.

Those dishes are lighter in fats and carbohydrates and richer in spices such as saffron, cumin, turmeric and coriander. The recipes use basmati rice or couscous instead of potatoes, more olive oil and less butter.

They emphasize citrus, especially preserved lemons. They put figs, pumpkin, olives, almonds, pistachios, pine nuts, and chickpeas in the pantry of cooking staples. And they introduce elements such as harissa, a spicy paste made from hot red peppers, and haloumi, a mildly salty cheese that holds up well to grilling.

A number of notable cookbook authors bring this more global perspective to their recipes, giving us a rich trove of classic cookbooks from which to draw ideas for our holiday dishes.

"In a way, every meal is a religious ceremony that has helped preserve both faith and family," Clarissa Hyman wrote in The Jewish Kitchen.

Hyman, whose parents owned a Jewish deli in her home city of Manchester, England, jokes that she was brought up in a pickle barrel, with "schmaltz in my veins."

But like so many food writers, she has traveled extensively, and her recipes include Venetian pumpkin risotto, North African coconut and orange cake, and Siberian Tzimmes (a carrot-and-prune side dish enjoyed on Passover).

Joan Nathan's name is synonymous with Jewish American cooking, and her classic Jewish Cooking in America shows how each wave of Jewish immigrants contributed to the rich stew of recipes we now call our own.

Poopa Dweck, the author of Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews, incorporates spices such as saffron and cardamom popular in the Middle East and North Africa and likely introduced to the Iberian peninsula by the Moors. Her smoky eggplant salad with garlic and parsley (see recipe) gets its charred flavor from cooking each piece directly over a fire, although households with electric ranges can make do with oven-roasting.

Joyce Goldstein's Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen brings hazelnuts, olive oil, and anchovies into play. Her roast chicken with oranges, lemon, and ginger makes an easy and impressive main dish for the holidays (see recipe).

Egyptian native Claudia Roden, best known for her Middle Eastern approach to Jewish cooking, also writes knowledgeably about Italian, Greek, Uzbeki, Polish, and Lithuanian influences. Her orange and almond cake is a fresh alternative to honey cake, a traditional Rosh Hashanah dessert (see recipe).

Pomegranates usually also make their way to the table on the High Holy Days because the fruit is said to have 613 seeds, corresponding to the 613 laws in the torah.

Whatever dishes make it onto your holiday table, the meal will be remembered as a Jewish experience.

"The kitchen," Roden says, "is the soul of the Jewish home."