I don't know who wrote this. I am reposting without attribution:
"UNDERSTANDING JEWISH FOOD"
The Atkinstein Diet
"This goes back 2 generations, 3 if you are over 50. It also explains why many Jewish men died in their early 60’s with a non-functional cardiovascular system and looked like today’s men at 89.
Before we start, there are some variations in ingredients because of the various types of Jewish taste (Polack, Litvack, Deutch and Gallicianer). Sephardic is for another time.
"We will begin by focusing on a main ingredient which, unfortunately and undeservedly, has disappeared from our diet. I’m talking, of course, about SCHMALTZ (chicken fat). SCHMALTZ has, for centuries, been the prime ingredient in almost every Jewish dish, and I feel it’s time to revive it to its rightful place in our homes. (I have plans to distribute it in a green glass Gucci bottle with a label clearly saying: “low fat, no cholesterol, Newman’s Choice, extra virgin SCHMALTZ.”(It can’t miss!) Then there are grebenes – pieces of chicken skin, deep fried in SCHMALTZ, onions and salt until crispy brown (Jewish bacon). This makes a great appetizer for the next cardiologist’s convention.
There’s also a nice chicken fricassee (stew) using the heart, gorgle (neck), pipick (gizzard – a great delicacy, given to the favorite child), a fleegle (wing) or two, some ayelech (little premature eggs) and other various chicken innards, in a broth of SCHMALTZ, water, paprika, etc. We also have knishes (filled dough) and the eternal question, “Will that be liver, beef or potatoes, or all three?”
Other time-tested favorites are kishkeh, and its poor cousin, helzel (chicken or goose neck). Kishkeh is the gut of the cow, bought by the foot at the Kosher butcher. It is turned inside out, scalded and scraped. One end is sewn up and a mixture of flour, SCHMALTZ, onions, eggs, salt, pepper, etc., is spooned into the open end and squished down until it is full. The other end is sewn and the whole thing is boiled. Often, after boiling, it is browned in the oven so the skin becomes crispy Yummy!
My personal all-time favorite is watching my Zaida (grandpa) munch on boiled chicken feet.
For our next course we always had chicken soup with pieces of yellow-white, rubbery chicken skin floating in a greasy sea of lokshen (noodles), farfel (broken bits of matzah), tzibbeles (onions), mondlech (soup nuts), kneidlach (dumplings), kasha (groats), kliskelech and marech (marrow bones) . The main course, as I recall, was either boiled chicken, flanken, kackletten, hockfleish (chopped meat), and sometimes rib steaks, which were served either well done, burned or cremated. Occasionally we had barbecued liver done to a burned and hardened perfection in our own coal furnace.
Since we couldn’t have milk with our meat meals, beverages consisted of cheap soda (Kik, Dominion Dry, seltzer in the spritz bottles). In Philadelphia it was usually Franks Black Cherry Wishniak (vishnik).
Growing up Jewish
If you are Jewish and grew up in city with a large Jewish population, or are gentile with Jewish friends or associates, the following will invoke heartfelt memories.
The Yiddish word for today is PULKES (PUHL-kees). Translation: THIGHS. Please note: this word has been traced back to the language of one of the original Tribes of Israel, the Cellulites.
The only good advice that your Jewish mother gave you was: “Go! You might meet somebody!”
You grew up thinking it was normal for someone to shout “Are you okay?” through the bathroom door when you were in there longer than 3 minutes.
Your family dog responded to commands in Yiddish.
Every Saturday morning your father went to the neighborhood deli (called an “appetizing store”) for whitefish salad, whitefish “chubs”, lox (nova if you were rich!), herring, corned beef, roast beef, cole slaw, potato salad, a 1/2-dozen huge barrel pickles which you reached into the brine for, a dozen assorted bagels, cream cheese and rye bread (sliced while he waited). All of which would be strictly off-limits until Sunday morning.
Every Sunday afternoon was spent visiting your grandparents and/or other relatives.
You experienced the phenomenon of 50 people fitting into a 10-foot-wide dining room hitting each other with plastic plates trying to get to a deli tray.
You had at least one female relative who penciled on eyebrows which were always asymmetrical.
You thought pasta was stuff used exclusively for Kugel and kasha with bowties.
You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven.
You were as tall as your grandfather by age seven and a half.
You never knew anyone whose last name didn’t end in one of 5 standard suffixes (berg, baum, man, stein and witz).
You were surprised to discover that wine doesn’t always taste like cranberry sauce.
You can look at gefilte fish and not turn green.
When your mother smacked you really hard, she continued to make you feel bad for hurting her hand.
You can understand Yiddish but you can’t speak it.
You know how to pronounce numerous Yiddish words and use them correctly in context, yet you don’t know exactly what they mean. Kaynahurra.
You’re still angry at your parents for not speaking both Yiddish and English to you when you were a baby.
You have at least one ancestor who is somehow related to your spouse’s ancestor.
You thought speaking loud was normal.
You considered your Bar or Bat Mitzvah a “Get Out of Hebrew School Free” card.
You think eating half a jar of dill pickles is a wholesome snack.
You’re compelled to mention your grandmother’s “steel cannonballs” upon seeing fluffy matzo balls served at restaurants.
You buy 3 shopping bags worth of hot bagels on every trip to Stamford Hillor Edgware and carefully shlep them home like glassware. (Or, if you live near Chigwell, Manchester or another Jewish city hub, you drive 2 or 3 hours just to buy a dozen “real” bagels.)
Your mother or grandmother took personal pride when a Jew was noted for some accomplishment (showbiz, medicine, politics, etc.) and was ashamed and embarrassed when a Jew was accused of a crime as if they were relatives.
You thought only non-Jews went to sleep away colleges. Jews went to city schools… unless they had scholarships or made an Ivy League school.
And finally, you knew that Sunday night and the night after any Jewish holiday was designated for Chinese food.
Zei gezunt"
Bill, same here. My parents would speak Yiddish so I wouldn't understand, but by the 5 years old I was fluent in it, and they didn't know that. So I understood everything, all the family secrets, and they didn't know that I knew. And I would blackmail them by threatening to reveal each's' secrets to the other, etc.
Ahh...schmaltz, and grebenes, which for the unenlightened is fried chicken fat. Yech! Who does that! However as someone pointed out to me, that's what bacon is. Just think, with a few marketing and advertising breaks, we could all be clamoring for, grebenes, lettuce and tomatoes sandwiches!
It is!
The oldest smoked brisket from Texas is from a Jewish deli too.
One mystery is my maternal G Grandmother's family (My mother's mother's mother). We know the family name and we know my G Grandparents emigrated from a town in modern-day Belarus, but we don't know their origins. But my maternal grandmother used to make a sweet we all loved: Fluden. It occurred to me that I have never, ever seen Fluden in a Jewish bakery. So I looked it up.
It's Hungarian, aka Flodni.
Sometimes food is a clue to family history, hiding in plain sight.
One mystery is my maternal G Grandmother's family (My mother's mother's mother). We know the family name and we know my G Grandparents emigrated from a town in modern-day Belarus, but we don't know their origins. But my maternal grandmother used to make a sweet we all loved: Fluden. It occurred to me that I have never, ever seen Fluden in a Jewish bakery. So I looked it up.
It's Hungarian, aka Flodni.
Sometimes food is a clue to family history, hiding in plain sight.
My family is from Belarus also. We might be related.
+1. For me too.
Quote:
I do genealogy as a hobby. So did my father and my late brother, and my late brother's son is picking it up. Some parts of the tree we've been able to build out, other parts not so much.
One mystery is my maternal G Grandmother's family (My mother's mother's mother). We know the family name and we know my G Grandparents emigrated from a town in modern-day Belarus, but we don't know their origins. But my maternal grandmother used to make a sweet we all loved: Fluden. It occurred to me that I have never, ever seen Fluden in a Jewish bakery. So I looked it up.
It's Hungarian, aka Flodni.
Sometimes food is a clue to family history, hiding in plain sight.
My family is from Belarus also. We might be related.
My pleasure. I enjoyed the article also.
Marty, I remember potatonik. Is that the same as potato kugel? I used to loved that, with the crispy, burnt edges.
Chinese food on Christmas and Easter also, plus a movie
Potato nik hot or cold ... mmmmm
Growing up as a catholic in NJ, I have learned to tolerate certain Jewish things...loud get-togethers, kefelte fish...ugh
But learned to love certain things...bagels, lox, deli's, brisket, and of course...my wife. (No, she is not reading over my shoulder.)
One distant relative from a branch of my grandmother’s family wrote a memoir about growing up in my grandmother’s town I after WWII. She had some happy memories of the place but she couldn’t wait to get out, either. She eventually emigrated to Canada.