But I lowballed the flounder, using a pound of fillets instead of the recipe’s one-and-a-half pounds. The terrine called for smoked whitefish and flounder fillets, both easily obtainable. I could not find any of these in the greater Washington, DC area. Traditional gefilte is made from freshwater whitefish, pike, carp or a combination. “It’s a bridge between the Old World and the New.”īut there were obstacles. “Gefilte fish is one of the food traditions that connect Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European origin to the past in a way that many others don’t,” he told me. I called up Yoskowitz, and he encouraged my efforts with a true rabbinic touch. The book promises “New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods.” It includes several recipes for gefilte fish, which, I learned, falls into three varieties: a baked loaf-like terrine, poached quenelles (small oblong balls) and “Old-World Stuffed Gefilte Fish.” “Gefilte” means “stuffed,” so “stuffed gefilte” means…stuffed stuff? No, the recipe calls for mixed gefilte layered inside a shell composed of fish skin and head. I set about finding a source of inspiration, ultimately choosing The Gefilte Manifesto, by Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern. In addition to the Passover hope of “Next year in Jerusalem,” I would add my own personal plea for deliverance: “No more jars! This year, homemade gefilte fish!” Only now can I admit to myself: It was awful! This year, I decided enough was enough. Maybe that’s because, in the post-Grandma world, gefilte fish more often than not came out of a glass jar. But as time went on, it became harder and harder to find really good gefilte fish. I came to appreciate it as a delivery vehicle for my true love, horseradish. Without her wizardry, I developed a paradoxical connection to gefilte fish. Like the rest of her immigrant generation, she made gefilte the way her mother made it…and her mother’s mother, and on and on. The pièces de résistance? Kneidlach (matzah balls) and, of course, gefilte fish. The smell of dill wafted up from the basement, where pickles were brining. The scent of chopped liver always greeted us as we walked through her door. Like so many other Jewish women of her generation, she rose from the sweatshops of Lower Manhattan to marriage, motherhood and middle-class respectability.īut she never lost touch with her origins. When my grandmother was 16, circa 1905, she journeyed alone from Smargon (in today’s Belarus) to Ellis Island.
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