I’ve written many times that my mom was a terrible cook. Which is one of the reasons why when when she inherited the responsibility to host our family Pesach Seder (for all of some 28 folks), we picked up the pre-cooked meals at a West Hempstead (kosher) caterer.
My father’s definition of a great meal was a big salad. (Yup. He couldn’t cook either.) So, when my mom was in the hospital, we ate salads every night. For about a month, until she was back to normal.
And, when I went off to college, I was on my own. The good thing is that I made friends with the chefs that produced the food for the catering hall where I worked. And, I learned well- even how to cook multi-course meals, where each course would be ready when I needed to serve it. A skill I use every Shabat and holiday, when my house is brimming with guests.
But, I have always relied on the only two things my parents taught me to prepare a meal. (No, I don’t heat up anything from cans!) At least once a week, I prepare a humongous salad, replete with hard boiled egg, a piece of salmon, or sliced steak, along with home-made (spicy) salad dressing. And, once a week, I boil up some noodles and add a pound of (Breakstone, Friendship, or Light&Lively) cottage cheese, a healthy dose of oregano and crushed pepper and “pig out”.
When my kids were growing up, they learned that noodles and cheese, a big salad, steak, prime ribs with papaya, chicken with white wine sauce and figs, salmon, tuna with mustard and wine were going to be their typical dinners. With, of course, noodles and cheese being the anchor meal.
Part of that reason behind this history of noodles and cheese is that I was highly allergic (as are my children and my grandchild). But, I was also a celiac baby/kid. Moreover, my mother was an Ashkenazi (not that her family was religious at all), with her folks hailing from Minsk and Pinsk. (The cities were part of Poland, White Russia,Lithuania, or Russia on any given day of the week back then.)
Which all leads up to a series of emails my kids shared this past week. My eldest daughter ran across an article in Tablet. Declaring that Noodles and Cheese (not the non-Jewish version of Mac and cheese) was/is a pretty common Ashkenazi staple.
According to that article written by Leah Koenig, Central and Eastern European Jews routinely devoured pot cheese and egg noodles (lokshen mit kaese), because it was cheap, easy, and still was a great comfort food. Moreover, Litvaks added salt and pepper, while Galitzianers added sugar to the concoction. (Even though Litvak means Lithuanian, that actually encompassed the region of Minsk and Pinsk, as is shown in the map above.)
And, to be honest, I’m sure my maternal grandparents prepared their own homemade noodles. But, my mom was able to provide me this staple because Goodman’s began selling kosher egg noodles in a bag. (Goodman’s has since been subsumed by what we now call Manischewitz, but that’s really RAB foods, a hedge fund-held entity.)
But, as pot cheese became replaced by cottage cheese in grocery stores, and folks became panicked by the use of saturated fats, the frequency of this dish being served dropped to near zero. Except, of course, in my household.
OK. I need a headcount. Who’s coming for dinner on Wednesday?
That’s my kind of diet, along with my granddaughter, she can live on noodles. As for your father’s salad meal, my hubby is the same way. He has a salad every night, even if just a bowl of lettuce with oil and vinegar.
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It would depend on the kind of lettuce for me, Martha. (NEVER iceberg!!!)
And, tell your granddaughter to come on over for some more noodles.
Iceberg is the last choice! Rich loves endive and escarole. I’ll send Alexandra up! LOL She makes a delicious soup with noodles, tomatoes and corn! 🙂
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Both great choices, there, Martha. Tell Alexandra she’s welcome anytime.
Me, me, me! Do you heat up the cottage cheese, or is this a cold dish? It sounds delicious, although I’ve never had sweet noodles, so I would probably do the salt-and-pepper version. I do like cottage cheese with jelly and mayonnaise, though. Question: if you were celiac, how could you eat noodles?
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Jelly and mayonnaise? I would stop at the mayonnaise for almost anything. But, everyone has their own taste.
We do the salt, pepper, oregano, onion, and Mrs. Dash version here. And, dinner is at 7 pm. I’ll set a place for you, Marian.
I’ll be there! Oh my goodness, you had me cracking up at the salad for a month. I would have screamed. I have a sister who refuses to eat eggs as my parents were really poor when she was young and they ate eggs from the 3 chickens they had every single day :-).
First things first- dinner is at 7 sharp! I have everything we need- including the wine. (Yes, I can pair a wine to this dinner 🙂 )
Ah, the salad wasn’t bad. We had different vegetables (we had a big garden back then) to add in each night to make the taste slightly different. (Oh, and my father NEVER had anything but vegetables in the salad. How pedestrian!)
What a cool story.
Thanks for that, Christina!
Oh- and for the visit, too!
Me, me, me!! Pretty sure my son will hide in the back seat, too. 🙂 It all sounds good! I never learned to cook, either, until I left home. In fact, I learned so that i could make better meals for my son. And it was fun because he always wanted to be in the kitchen with me, keeping me company. Now, he cooks our meals! Pretty neat how that worked out, right? 😉
No problems, Jeanine. I have a great big dining table!
I love noodles, and being gluten intolerant (not celiac though), I am very happy with the array of gluten free noodle options around these days!
Emily- while no longer celiac, I choose alternative flours, as well. (I also have at least once Shabat a month that caters to my gluten-free friends…)
Me. I’m on my way! Shall I bring dessert?
Nope, I’ve got it all covered! Looking forward to it, Alice.
I wish I was, because I remember this dish from my childhood. My father’s father was from Pinsk and, when he came to the United States, owned a candy store in the Ocean Hill section of Brooklyn. I miss the good egg bows, that made such good kasha vanishkas.
I miss them, too, Alana. Because they used to be produced from really good (alternative) flours!