Edda Servi Machlin, who survived the harrowing World War II years in Italy by hiding out with anti-Fascist partisans, then immigrated to the United States and wrote a definitive cookbook on Italian Jewish food, died on Aug. 16 at her home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She was 93 .

Her daughter Gia Machlin said the cause was vascular dementia.

In 1981, when Ms. Machlin published “The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews,” few people were aware of the distinctive Jewish culinary traditions of that part of the world, or of the centuries-long history behind them.

Especially in the United States, where dishes from Central and Eastern Europe dominated Jewish cuisine, many Jewish readers were surprised to learn that instead of hamantaschen, the triangular pastries associated with Purim, her book offered a fried pastry known as Haman’s ears.

The book (which she followed with a Volume 2 in 1992) did more than just offer recipes; it recounted her memories of growing up in Pitigliano, a town in Tuscany that was known as the little Jerusalem because — at least until World War II — it had a vibrant Jewish community and culture, one that had been there for centuries. She told of an underground communal oven that, when she was young, was used only for baking matzo at Passover.