A Family Love of Gefilte Fish

For 101-year-old Florence Bernstein, lovingly known as Flossie, gefilte fish is a family tradition. 

When she was a child, she remembers the carp swimming in the bathtub – that’s where fresh fish lived before it was time to cook them – and having homemade gefilte fish for Shabbat every week.

“I have this memory,” Bernstein told the Journal. “My mother sat on a stool and the bowl was in her lap, and she chopped and chopped and chopped until it was fine enough to make balls. There was something about my mother chopping fish … I felt safe.”

The last few years, Bernstein and her family have gathered before Passover and Rosh Hashanah at her eldest daughter’s home to make a large batch of gefilte fish. They use Bernstein’s mother’s 100-year-old aluminum pots for the endeavor, and sometimes keep the younger family members out of school for the occasion.

“What I treasure most is the fact that I have this continuity with my children and grandchildren.” – Florence Bernstein

“What I treasure most is the fact that I have this continuity with my children and grandchildren,” Bernstein said. “There’s this link that I hope would be carried on.”

Bernstein, who lives in Los Angeles, grew up in Detroit. She was first generation; three siblings were born in Poland, she and her brother were born in the United States. Growing up, her family celebrated Shabbat and holidays with traditional foods. The imprint of anticipating, preparing holiday meals and eating together as a family made an impression. Like her love of gefilte fish, it is something she has passed on to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

When the Journal met with Bernstein via Zoom to hear about her gefilte connection, her family joined in. Her daughters, Ellen Pearlman and Laura Perloff; son, Barry Bernstein; eldest granddaughter, Sarah Seban and eldest great-granddaughter Sophia Seban wanted to be part of this conversation.

“Gefilte fish is an acquired taste formed from Flossie’s skill and enthusiasm,” Pearlman said. “The process is personal to our mother. She keeps the recipe ‘close to the vest’ and, like a marathon, it takes endurance, dedication, preparation and a sense of community.”

Bernstein’s gefilte fish recipe dates back to the 1960s. It has been altered over the years … and on receipts and fish packing paper there are notes and adjustments for next time. 

“My gefilte fish is not just my mother’s recipe, which she never wrote down,” Bernstein said. “But I have bits and pieces from friends [and] a neighbor.”

According to Pearlman, the first written recipe from the upstairs neighbor notes, “My first attempt to make gefilte fish. Mrs. Katev’s recipe was the closest in texture and flavor to my mother’s … but I kept changing it til I felt it was getting even closer!”

“Gefilte fish was the clarion call for Rosh Hashanah and Passover,” middle child Laura Perloff told the Journal. “The ordering of the fish, the day of cooking, the tasting, setting the table for guests and finally the holiday.”

Pearlman said they get together for dinner the night before Rosh Hashanah and sample the gefilte fish. 

“Our family has about 80 people for lunch on Rosh Hashanah day,” she said. “A taco stand caters the lunch. The gefilte fish competes with the ceviche and always wins out.”

Bernstein notes that everybody gets exactly one carrot slice on their gefilte fish.

Somewhere in the 1990’s Perloff decided she needed to learn to make her mother’s recipe. She, her husband, Gregg and two sons had lived in Northern California since 1974, and missed many holiday gatherings due to distance and work. 

“After our children were born, I felt a need to establish what our Jewish home would be like. Making gefilte fish felt like a good way to connect with Flossie and the Jewish holiday. Flossie’s instructions were very exacting.” 

Perloff needed to convince the local fishmonger to give her fish with “no eyes, no fins and no tails” in addition to lots of heads, collars and bones for the broth. 

“It was a labor of love and gave me insight into Flossie and the holiday preparations,” she said. “Gregg gave me the best compliment possible, ‘It tasted just like Flossie’s gefilte fish!’”

Bernstein thinks everybody should make homemade gefilte fish at least once. “I personally feel a closeness,” she said. “It’s almost a love affair in making the gefilte fish.”

Pearlman recalled that as her mother dropped eggs into the recipe, one at a time, she would tell the egg to blend nicely.

When asked about her connection to gefilte fish, Bernstein said, “It’s the Jewishness. It’s not religious. It’s tradition.”

Bernstein’s love for gefilte fish goes beyond making it, eating it and sucking the bones while the broth is cooking. She is also a ceramicist who makes beautiful fish-shaped platters upon which she presents her gefilte fish.

“When I throw a slab of clay down, somehow it is always elongated, which makes it a fish,” she said. “From there I can do what I want with the tail. I can poke an eye in.”

Bernstein loves everything about gefilte fish: the taste, the texture, the family bonding while making it. And a comfort knowing her recipe will live on. 

“For us it’s a give-‘n’-take process filled with laughter, lunch and endearments,” Pearlman said. “Flossie is a fine hands-on coach, is deeply appreciative of her legacy and seems content knowing her [gefilte fish] is still the best!”