Food
Favorite Foods
What follows is a list of some of the foods we remember fondly from Gorham St:
- Hot Cabbage Soup - sometimes known as Russian borscht, with pieces of meat in it along with a boiled potato
- Cold roast chicken and dill pickles - in the evening, for a snack, this was a meichel, a delight.
- Bulkes - these were hard rolls, always fresh, that had a crust you had to bite through. We would have them for breakfast with butter, or sometimes with tuna fish. These were either delivered by the bread man or bought fresh at the bakery.
- Potato latkes - potato pancakes. They are fried, crispy and light. We had them all year round, not just at Chanukah, the Feast of Lights.
- Potato kugel - this was like a potato latke only it was baked in an 8"xl0" baking pan, was about an inch and a half thick, and was crispier. Mom would often serve this for Saturday dinner, at noon. (We had supper at about 6 pm.)
- Blintzes - pancakes rolled around a filling of cottage cheese. These were topped with blobs of sour cream. They were served hot, but those we ate the next day were cold, and they were delicious too.
- Chocolate cupcakes with butter - or chocolate cake with butter. Mom didn't have much success in baking cakes. Her challahwas great, and her pies were OK. But her chocolate cakes and cupcakes were solid enough so that they could be buttered. In addition to looking good when buttered, they tasted wonderful. (When Et made her first chocolate cake following a recipe she thought she had done something wrong because the result was not like Mom's. Et had thought that chocolate cake was supposed to be firm, solid, and heavy.)
- Prokehs - were ground meat balls with rice wrapped in cabbage leaves.
- Sardines, peas, and ketchup on toast - this dish was made by and perhaps invented by Pearl. It sounds terrible, and it didn't look good either, but it tasted good. There aren't many places that serve it these days.
- Tsimmes - Leo Rosten, in his book The Joys of Yiddish, says that a tsimmes is a side dish of mixed cooked vegetables and fruits. When Mom would make a tsimmes it wasn't a side dish, it became a delicious main course. Two of our favorites were the pflaumen, with prunes, carrots, and chuck, and one with rice and raisins wrapped in cabbage leaves.
- Spanish rice - this would be a Sunday evening dish. It looked simple and it tasted great. It has been a challenge for Et to try to duplicate "Spanish rice ala Ida Rappaport."
- Spaghetti - this dish of Mom's was in fact simple to pre- pare. It could be that only Et and Bucky liked it, they seem to be the only ones who are nostalgic over it. The secret was in the sauce. The sauce was undiluted Campbell's tomato soup. But it was wonderful, sopping up the leftover spaghetti sauce with challah.
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