Ever notice how our grandparents were always a little thick in the middle. They never seemed undernourished or skinny. This was the generation that emmigrated to the United States after WWI. This was the generation that suffered pogroms, tyranny, social degradation and financial disaster. This is the generation that had little or no food to feed their families in Europe. How does it happen then, that our grandparents and parents of that era never looked gaunt or carried a small frame?
Potatoes… plain and simple. My aunt once told me that after going to bed hungry many a cold night in Poland, she would never forget digging out potatoes from their meager garden and eating them raw. As unpleasant as we might think, this sustained many families when nothing else was available. Upon arriving in the United States and finding potatoes and other starchy foods readily available, most women who had a family planned their meals around potatoes, cabbage rice and pasta. The reason being, it was inexpensive, available and hearty. No one would go hungry again; and they didn’t.
For the next generation families relied on fatty, foods rich in cholesterol (what’s that) to keep them warm in winter and safe in the feeling that they will never be hungry. Potatoes, blintzes, kreplach and noodles were stables in most Jewish homes. With a meat meal, mama would spread that delicious rendered chicken fat (gribnesse) on bakery rye or black Russian bread. Then we would smother our mashed potatoes in that heavenly golden shmaltz. There was always a salt shaker on the table along with a sugar bowl for a cup of tea with mandolbread and rugalach.
It's no wonder the second and third generation of American Jews developed health problems. We lost our families long before they turned 65 to diabetes, heart problems and clogged arteries.
Today’s young folks are so much more aware of what they consume. Skinless, boneless, tasteless chicken breast simply cannot be compared to chicken soup with real chicken and matzah balls floating in golden droplets of chicken fat. Potato pancakes made from scratch from little old bubbies whose knuckles were raw from grating the potatoes cannot be duplicated.
I remember my father walking to the fresh fish market before Rosh Hashanah to buy pike, white fish and carp for homemade gefilta fish. The fish floated in our bathtub for a day or two before mama would begin the old traditional recipe. We had an old fashioned iron grinder that fastened on the kitchen counter. In went the fish, potatoes, celery, carrots, eggs, matzah meal, magic spices and onions. Dad did the grinding and stopped periodically to rest his arm. Then mama cradled each portion of the mixture into the left over skin from the fish and cooked it to perfection.
Young people don’t know what they have missed. Yes, they will probably live longer and enjoy better health but they will never know the joy of an old-fashioned kosher kitchen. Happy New Year, good health and may you all live to a ripe old age.
