ba.le.bost.te (pronounced (bahluhbuhstuh): a capable efficient housewife, especially a traditional Jewish one, devoted to maintaining a well-run home.
I wouldn’t say I that I am particularly a baleboste, but I try. I’m always looking for books to teach me how to be more domesticated and a better cook without intimidating me and making me feel like I can’t cook. When it comes to Jewish recipes, I do okay, but I do follow recipes very, very carefully, to try to capture the right flavors and bring a a bit of history and culture into my home.
Tonight I had a uniquely inspiring experience and I may be on my way to becoming a baleboste.
I went to hear June Fleiss Hersh, the author of Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival speak. Her book is a compilation of food memories, stories about food and families, and recipes from Holocaust survivors from Poland, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and Greece. It includes professionally written and tested recipes and over 80 family stories of rescues, reunions, resistance, and love amid war. In many cases, sons, daughters, and grandchildren honor their family’s history through retelling Holocaust stories and sharing recipes. The book includes stories of a daughter who walked across the frozen Danube to reunite with her mother; a refugee who made a new life among welcoming strangers in the Dominican Republic; newlyweds who met crossing the Alps by foot; and valiant men and women who fought with the partisans; among many other unique, personal histories.
Fleiss spoke passionately about honoring the legacy of the Holocaust and the stories of survival. She said that the recipes in the book honor the traditions of the Jewish community and offer resilience and hope for all of us. For many of the survivors who contributed to the book, this book is now a permanent tribute to their families with whom they gathered around the table before the war tore them apart, and to their family members born after the war who join around the table to share their heritage through recipes passed on from generation to generation. She worked with the Museum of Jewish Heritage in downtown NYC to obtain access to a group of survivors pore over historical files and ALL the proceeds from the book sales go directly to the museum which educates tolerance.
So, how do I plan on becoming a baleboste? By trying Judith Ginsburg’s brisket, Nadzia Goldstein Bergson’s home-baked challah, Frania Faywlowicz’ meat and potato cholent but by also reading their stories. Knowing that Frania’s parents were liberated but put in a DP camp before moving to Montreal will make eating her dish all the sweeter. Children write about their parents, husbands write about their wives and vice versa or they share the painful stories of being the only one left. Images accompany the stories, and recipes are laid out simply, almost as a subtle back-up to the tragic tales.
I’m going to read this book slowly, it won’t be an easy read, and it might very well inspire me to make Jewish recipes from the part of the world my ancestry spawns from. Before you know it, there will be new aromas coming from my kitchen, but you may need to get past my tears from reading the stories first.
Disclosure: I purchased my own copy of this book and all opinions are my own.
Recent Comments