[Sca-cooks] THE BORN AGAIN BALABUSTA

[Heleen Greenwald]

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Some light reading for those of us not fortunate enough to be at Pennsic,
Phillipa

THE BORN AGAIN BALABUSTA

By chance, you just may appreciate this. This made me feel sick just reading
it!  Funny though how I know just what they are talking about without even
being a part of that 'history'!

If you happen to be offended, insulted, or just don't see the humor in this,
then please accept my apology in advance.

Otherwise, send it to family and friends!

Chow and good wishes for the upcoming new year,


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Just reading this will probably cause you to run out for some Rolaids or
Tums. It amazing that a generation or so our families ate like this AND
lived  to talk about it!!!!!

It happens every couple of weeks.  The phone call comes from my wife,
the lovely, exotic and erotic Reva.  "I'm at my wit's end.  I don't know
what to make for dinner anymore.  Somebody hates this, someone is allergic
to that, the sight of this makes me barf!  It's terrible!  Could you maybe
bring home some Swiss Chalet or McDonalds?"
I feel some things have changed for the worse here.  I'm talking about the
lack of good old, down-home Jewish cooking in our homes.  I am taking it
upon myself to help out all you frantic housewives out there, with
wonderful menus that
will lead your children to a healthy, happy, and loving family unit as I
knew it in my childhood.

First, go down to Filene's basement, buy a housecoat, and wear it all
day,every day.  Then go out and buy a live chicken, carry it wrapped in a
newspaper to the Shoichet (slaughterer) who will ritually slaughter it
before your very eyes.  When you get it home, flick your chicken and
make sure you don't leave in any pinchus (feather ends).  Next, go out and
buy a four-foot-long carp with huge whiskers.  Fill your bathtub with
water and let the fish swim in it for several days.

In the meantime, remove your Burbur broadloom from the living room,
polish the hardwood floors, cover them in newspaper, cover your couch in
Saran wrap, and don't let anyone in your living room again.

Now you're a real "BALABUSTA," which is a term of respect used for an
efficient Jewish housewife, and the essence of your universe is in the
kitchen.  So get out your wooden matches, light the pilot light, get
out the volgar holtz (wooden bowl), hock the tzibbeles (onions) and
knubble  (garlic), and we're Jewish again.

Before we start, however, there are some variations in ingredients
because of the various types of Jewish taste (Polack, Litvack and
Gallicianer).
Just as we Jews have six seasons of the year (winter, spring, summer,
fall,the slack season, and the busy season), we all focus on a main
ingredient which unfortunately, and undeservedly, has disappeared from our
diet.
I'm talking, of course, about SCHMALTZ (chicken fat).  SCHMALTZ has for
centuries been the prime ingredient in almost every Jewish dish, and I
feel it's time to revive it to its rightful place in our homes.  (I have
plans to distribute it in a green glass Gucci bottle with a label clearly
saying: low fat, no cholesterol, President's Choice, extra virgin
SCHMALTZ. It can't miss!)

Let's start, of course, with the "forshpeiz" (appetizer).  Gehockteh
leiber (chopped liver) with SCHMALTZ is always good, but how about
something more exotic for your dear ones, like boiled whitefish in yoyech
(soup) which sets into a jelly form, or "gefilteh miltz" (stuffed spleen),
in
which the veins are removed, thank God, and it is fried in, you guessed it,
SCHMALTZ,bread crumbs, eggs, onions, salt and pepper.

Love it!  How about stewed lingen (lungs) - very chewy, or gehenen
(brains) - very slimy.  Am I making your mouth water yet?  Then there are
greebenes - pieces of chicken skin, deep fried in SCHMALTZ,onions and
salt until crispy brown.  This makes a great appetizer for the next
cardiologist's
convention.  Another favorite, and I'm sureyour children will love it,
is pe'tcha (jellied calves feet).  Simply chop up some cows' feet with your
hockmesser (handl-chopper), add some meat, onions, lots of garlic,
SCHMALTZ again, salt and pepper, cook for five  hours and let it sit
overnight.
You might want to serve it with oat bran and bananas for an interesting
breakfast.
There's also a nice chicken fricassee (stew) using the heart, gorgle (neck),
pipick (a great
delicacy, given to the favorite child, usually me), a fleegle (wing) or
two,  some ayelech (little premature eggs) and other various chicken
innards, in a broth of SCHMALTZ, water, paprika, etc.

We also have knishes (filled dough) and the eternal question "Will that
be liver, beef or potatoes or all three?".  Other time-tested favorites
are kishkeh, and its poor cousin, helzel (chicken or goose neck).  Kishkeh
is the gut of the cow, bought by the foot at the butcher.  It is turned
inside out, scalded and scraped.  One end is sewn up and a mixture of
flour, SCHMALTZ, onions, eggs, salt, pepper, etc. is spooned into the open
end and squished down until it is full, the other end is sewn and the whole
thing is boiled.  Yummy!  My personal all-time favorite is watching my
Zaida (grandpa) munch on boiled chicken feet.  Try that on the kinderlach
(children) tomorrow.  For our next course we always had chicken soup with
pieces of
yellow-white,rubbery chicken skin floating in a greasy sea of lokshen
(noodles), farfel(broken bits of matzah), arbiss (chickpeas), lima beans,
pietrishkeh, tzibbeles (onions), mondlech (soup nuts), kneidlach
(dumplings), kasha, (groats) kliskelech and marech (marrow bones).

The main course, as I recall, was either boiled chicken, flanken,
kackletten (hockfleish-chopped meat), and sometimes rib steaks which
were served either well done, burned or cremated.  Occasionally we
had barbecued liver done to a burned and hardened perfection in our own
coal furnace.

Since we couldn't have milk with our meat meals, beverages consisted of
cheap pop (Kik, Dominion Dry, seltzer in the spritz bottles) or a
glezel tay (glass of hot tea) served in a yohrtzeit (memorial candle)
glass and sucked through a sugar cube held between the incisors.

Desserts were probably the only things not made with SCHMALTZ, so we
never had any.

Well, now you know the secret of how I've grown up to be so tall,
sinewy,slim and trim, energetic, extremely clever and modest, and if you
want your children to grow up to be like me, you're in gohnsen meshuggah!
(completely nuts!)

      ZEI MIR GEZUNT.
(go in good health)


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