Cara De Silva, a journalist and historian of food and culinary culture who in 1996 edited a groundbreaking collection of recipes amassed by prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp, which became a surprise hit, died on Dec. 7 in Manhattan. She was 83.

Ms. De Silva was less interested in hot trends and buzzy restaurants than in the culinary byways and subcultures that defined a community that could be understood through its food. She was the perfect choice to edit In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy From the Women of Terezin,” a slim volume of recipes that had been compiled by a Jewish prisoner in the concentration camp known as Terezin  — Theresienstadt — during WWII. These were the memories of what the women of the camp had made before the war, foods richly evocative of Jewish family life.

Published in 1996 by Jason Aronson, a small company specializing in Judaica, the book became an expected hit, selling more than 100,000 copies to date. When it was published, Ms. De Silva and some friends recreated a few of the recipes for a small party in honor of the women behind them.