When you think of survival you think of food, but for us food is not just for survival.
Beyond basic pleasure, flavors often scratch the memory cells and suddenly bring up an image.
For example, this week I found pickled herring at the Yakaran in the neighborhood, and I felt like it - because with all due respect to all the celebrated chefs, a slice of challah spread generously with butter and topped with pieces of salted fish and slices of chibla (onion) is a heavenly bite + a "meeting" with my late mother For years. A little background: Both of my parents were Holocaust survivors. This time I will focus on my mother.
She used to go to the Carmel Market to buy such a shiny fish and with the skill of a surgeon would take care of it at home, capture it and place it in the glass jar intended for that purpose, and then the following dialogue would take place: Mother:
" I feel like pickled herring (or Matias)"
Me: "Well?
What's the problem, eat."
At this stage I would already start to get angry because I knew what was coming - "I will give up because then I will be thirsty".
And I, in my inability to understand the depth of the trauma she is speaking from, I would enter her.
"That thirst again? Don't you have anything to drink? Here's soda, there's orange juice, there's water in the tap, drink what's the problem?"
What I didn't understand at the time, and the meaning of which struck me later, is a sentence she once said: "One could get along with hunger. The worst of all was thirst. Thirst is a terrible suffering."
Grandmother and grandmother of Irit Brenner, Holocaust survivors (photo: courtesy of the family)
My mother was a young girl when the war broke out, and she went through the dark period with her older brother.
Her parents and sister and other uncles, grandparents - were murdered.
After the war, they arrived in the city of Wroclaw in Poland, where the Holocaust refugees were concentrated.
There my mother married my father, in a short time my father opened a bakery and the success was dizzying.
They were stuck in Poland for a few more years (the Polish government did not release them easily - surprise) and in the 1950s immigrated to Israel.
Maybe it doesn't always sound like that, but I'm already made in the Levant.
One standard day, when I was 12 maybe 13, we were sitting in the kitchen.
I had lunch and she was busy with something.
By and large, my curiosity was mostly blocked, because my mother thought that there was no need to talk too much - the motto was "what was in the past, now finish your lessons" or finish what's on your plate already.
such a.
But there are these moments when something opens up.
And it happened that day.
Suddenly I asked her - "Tell me, mother, who worked in the bakery? After all, they all died" (I was a girl - secretary).
She put the kitchen towel on her shoulder with a typical swing, turned to me and gave me a lesson in life.
"German women workers worked in a bakery.."
"What?"
I screamed, "Nation!?"
(Worclaw was a city in Germany before the war - Breslau - only after the division of Europe and at the end of the war it moved to Poland.)
Irit Brenner's mother (photo: courtesy of the family)
"Yes, German women. What do you think, that they weren't poor? Their owners were drafted into the Wehrmacht, most of them were either killed or froze to death on the Russian border, and they were left as widows taking care of babies, in terrible conditions of broken-in apartments and open sewers, in bone-piercing cold for many months, anyone who thought They were abused only because they were simple German women. I felt sorry for them - they were also victims - for me there was no question whether to employ them, and give them a living to survive their hunger and their hardships."
To the best of my recollection, we bought after her, she was washing dishes or something like that, and me?
I didn't understand then.
And I was 13 years old, my mother's age, when the war broke out.
The truth doesn't understand today either.
but miss you
Soltham pots, ninja knives, Tabor wine and Barkan wine, and a stunning tahini chocolate spread (photo: photo editing)
My mother cooked wonderfully and loved beautiful dishes, including setting a table, she was an inspiration for the creative need that accompanied her life - she had golden hands.
just what?
She had a tendency to "keep" stills.
For example, a set of enamel pots with a lovely illustration of flowers were placed in the cupboard in the kitchen but it was "a shame to destroy them".
Or an amazingly beautiful coffee service that was placed in a showcase and woe betide me if I touched it.
On holidays she would celebrate with crystal wine glasses, the silver cutlery she had brought with her from Poland and maps she would embroider with rare talent.
Brenner's recommended:
A new "Twist" series of pots (there are 5 sizes) by Soltam made me really fall in love with them.
First, they are designed for my taste rounded and in a charcoal black shade.
They are NON STICK FOOD SAFE type, environmentally friendly aluminum.
Which means that it is a pleasure to wash them, although it is also possible in the dishwasher.
I plowed on the pot for a few days and it was finally adopted.
Before the holiday, a group of journalists gathered in a fancy restaurant to taste the 2020 vintage of Barkan PLATINUM Sauvignon.
Most of them understand interest, and with an enviable importance they uttered there, "a taste of black fruit, of course... wait, and also sweet spices and coffee and chocolate... I stared at them and didn't understand exactly where they got the chocolate. And when they turned to me and asked... I answered in my own way - delicious... really Delicious.
The merlot from the Adama series of Tabor Winery also received complicated words from those in the know, such as "flavors of fruit, tannin, astringency" and such. I say again - t
Brotherhood - who doesn't love tahini?
Who doesn't love chocolate?
Well silence.
because everyone loves
So "in brotherhood" created an addictive spread that is a combination of raw tahini and chocolate.
What's funny is that they mentioned that it is without added sugar as if it were lettuce and chicory.
fattening?
Obviously!
tasty?
murder.
Ninja has already become a well-known brand with all their awesome blenders, not to mention the grill monsters that produce a delicious meal at the push of a button.
So here they are back in Bays, and these days they market knives and even sharpeners.
Which reminds me that once in a while my mother would roll the knives in a towel and go to the sharpener to sharpen the blade.
A good knife in the kitchen is more important than any electrical product.
Did I already say I miss you?
Sheee
Sheee-tok
Tags
Holocaust and heroism day
