HUNGRY GERALD

HG’s late Mom, Ida Kopkind Freeman, fed growing HG cuisine ranging from the celestial to the abysmal. Celestial soups: In hot weather, there was icy beet borscht and “schav” (sorrel soup). Both served with a boiled potato, sour cream and chopped onions and radishes. In cold weather: Chicken soup with noodles or “kasha” (buckwheat groats) or fluffy matzo balls. Sometimes all three. “Kapusta” (robust Russian meat and cabbage soup). Mushroom and barley (little HG’s fave). Celestial appetizers: Chopped liver (heavy on lush chicken fat). Gefilte fish (with fiery fresh horseradish grated by HG). “Kreplach” (Jewish dumplings fried in chicken fat). Celestial main dishes: Brisket (“gehdempteh brust” in Yiddish). Sweet and sour stuffed cabbage. Celestial “dairy dishes”: Blintzes; broad egg noodles with pot cheese, kosher salt and cracked black peppercorns; potato “latkes” with sour cream (never apple sauce); matzo brei. Also, bananas or seasonal fruit with sour cream. Celestial baked treats: Noodle and potato kugels; rugelach; “Lekach” (honey cake). Abysmal: All vegetables and salads (a honey and ginger dish of shaved carrots cooked with garlic and chicken fat was known as “tzimmes” was the exception. It was served warm and was delicious.) Absymal: Kosher steak (gristly, tough and broiled beyond well done). Tasteless boiled chicken. Hamburgers fried in Crisco. Mueller’s spaghetti cooked into a sodden mess and covered in canned tomatoes. “American” fried chicken: boiled chicken covered with corn flakes and cooked, once more, in Crisco (this dish made abysmal move into horror). Abysmal desserts: Stewed prunes or canned pears. In retrospect, food winners outnumbered losers and HG thrived. Hey, there was the best after school snack ever. A slice of Pechter’s (or Stuhmer’s) pumpernickel smeared with chicken fat and sprinkled with kosher salt and black pepper (sometimes a slice of raw onion was added). (Patient HG fans: Yes, many posts about HG’s Mom. A pre-Mother’s Day tribute).

HG’s Mom (Ida Kopkind Freeman) did not fear insects vermin. She would grab big, scary spiders with her hands and crush them. Same went for water bugs, hornets (even the “Murder Hornet” had they been around) and other creepy-crawlies, big and small. Hands were vigorously washed with strong “laundry” soap. Very busy woman: Cleaning. Washing. Dusting. Making beds and changing sheets. Cooking. Pickling. Canning. Knitting. Sewing. Crocheting. No idle moments. Mom grew up in a tiny Belorussian “shetl” Life was rugged. When Mom was seven years old, she went out into the summer warmth to tend the vegetable garden. A very large rat was nibbling a cucumber. Mom kicked the rat with her bare foot. Enraged, the nasty rodent sunk its teeth into Mom’s big toe. The bite cracked a bone. Mom strangled the rat because it wouldn’t let go. No doctors in the “shetl”. So, the bloody wound was treated with a salve made by a neighbor, an old woman named Pesha. Never healed properly. Left a big bump. Painful when walking or standing for a long time. Mom shrugged it off. Hey, worse things happened to Jews in Europe. In the late 1930’s, after family pressure, Mom finally went to a hospital for a toe operation. Loved being in the hospital for a few days. Total leisure. She could lie in a comfortable bed and listen to favorite soap operas on the radio as well as the Yiddish station, WEVD. That was Mom’s taste of luxury.

Yiddish was the language of Ashkenazi Jews. Scorned by Zionists who felt it echoed the European ghettoes, they replaced it with Modern Hebrew. However diminished (millions of Yiddish speakers were murdered in the Holocaust), Yiddish lingers on. There is a splendid body of literature (and much poetry) in Yiddish. I.B. Singer, Nobel prize winner, was one of many important writers whose work was in Yiddish. HG’s late Mom. was born Ida Kopkind in a Belorussian “shtetl” in the Minsk province. She spent the majority of her life in Bronx apartments before her death in a nursing home. Yiddish is a very flexible language, reflecting the nomadic life of Jews in the diaspora. Mom adapted Yiddish into a language HG calls “Yinglish.” How did Mom identify her apartment house neighbors? The woman next door was the “nextdoorehkeh.” And, so on: “upstezzehkeh”, “downstezzehkeh”, “groundfloorehkeh”. An unsavory person was a “nogoodnik.” A flighty young woman, possibly free with her favors, was a “bummerkeh.” Mom Yinglishized geography. HG’s family lived in “Duh Bronix”. Relatives lived in “Brunzevlle” (the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn). A non sequitur: Mom was very gracious when it came to complimenting unmarried women. No matter how unsightly, Mom would always focus on a desirable feature. About a spinster with a face like a potato, Mom pointed out: “She has lovely hands.”