Man with a pan s/o traditional foods

amother

Beige

Wed, Jan 13 2021, 9:38 pm

I didn’t read the other thread, but growing up our traditional shabbos meals were:

Friday night:
Gefilte fish
Chicken soup with knaidel and lokshen
Chicken on bone, ferfel, sweet kugel - lokshen or rice
Dessert - baked apples

Shabbos lunch:
Gefilte fish
Egg salad, chopped liver
Cholent
Dessert - fresh fruit

I may not be remembering 100% accurately - this was about 30+ years ago. In the later years, my mom started serving fresh salads and apple crisp (I guess those were newer foods). She also started making potato kugel at some point. I don’t remember her serving vegetables, but since she was strict about us having veggies every night at dinner, I’m wondering if I just don’t remember correctly.

amother

Wed, Jan 13 2021, 10:05 pm

amother [ Beige ] wrote:

Yes! I remember when my mother in law started serving apple crisp. It was like the new food then!
My mother also evolved over time. At some point she started making salads and green beans. She also made salmon instead of white fish and carp. She always made the same exact salmon: cooked sweet with onions. Eventually she started making baked salmon.
Potato kugel was always grated by hand. And then at some point, it was switched over to the kugel blade and no one complained!
Potato kugel is the one food I cannot imagine going into shabbos without.
Another dessert my mother used to make aside from apple compote was homemade parve ice cream (made with raw eggs and whip).

English3

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 1:19 am

Op my meal is exactly like your list. I am chassidish I guess this is what most chassidim eat with a bit of a twist according to their minhag such as onion kugel in skver etc. I can spice up my meal with morrocan fish but that is the max. My Thursday and Friday are beyond calm BC I cook on auto pilot no planning menus. And the smell of the same shabbos food every week is taam gan Eden.

amother

Coffee

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 2:03 am

amother [ Tan ] wrote:

Our grandmother was pretty similar but we always had cooked carrots ( tzimmis) definitely no farfel or compote. We had toffutti ice cream

or 7 layer cake from korns in a bakery box tied with a red and white string.
Meal mart liver was a must but ours was served on a checked lettuce leaf surrounded by a pepper ring.
Potatoes grated by hand was a must Can't Believe It

Yes to the tofutti and 7 layer cake tied with a red and white string! And the meal mart liver on a lettuce leaf too;)

I grew up with
Kedem grape juice
Bakery egg challah, not the kind baked in a high pan
Gefilte fish with chain
Chicken soup with osem croutons
Roasted chicken, paprika or duck sauce
Potato kugel
Roasted frozen broccoli
Dessert was an apple betty or baked apple or tofutti and if it was someones birthday that week we had 7 layer cake or checkerboard cake.

Shobbos day
Kedem grape juice
Egg challah
Meal mart liver mixed with chopped egg on a checked lettuce leaf
A cut up vegetable platter and hot pepper rings
Second course was choulent (no meat)
Chicken from the choulent
Coleslaw
Dessert was same as Friday night

amother

Lilac

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 7:12 am

OP, I totally got what you were saying and I loved your menu!
It made me homesick for the Shabbos table five year old me used to sit at. I could practically smell the chicken soup and hear the zemiros as I read it. The Shabbos menu I remember was almost exactly the same as what you listed. I was laughing when I saw the posts about your menu's lack of healthy vegetables because I didn't even get any chickpeas or radishes with my soup, just the thin lokshen you remembered. The other difference was that the chopped liver was always home made and delicious in a way you wouldn't imagine chopped liver can be. Nutritionists will be happy to know the sliced cucumbers you mentioned were served alongside.

amother

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 7:34 am

amother [ Coffee ] wrote:

Haha. Love the Osem croutons! That is still a staple in my home!
We also had herring occasionally at the day meal.
Also, the fish course was accompanied by pickles, cut in slices and placed in a small bowl.
In later years my mother made her own broiled liver fried in onions.
And who can forget the seven layer cake with the white box and red string?? My family still goes crazy for 7 layer. Nothing like it.
We also drank only seltzer. No colored soda for us. At simchas they also served ginger ale, which we called ginger kale.
Oh, at simchos you would find Cole slaw and cucumber salad.

amother

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 7:39 am

amother [ Lilac ] wrote:

Thanks! And regarding lack of veggies, my father used to say lettuce is for cows, not for people. LOL

And who ever heard of Romaine, arugula or kale? It was only iceberg lettuce for us (if at all.)

amother

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 7:54 am

kalsee wrote:

OP , cute thread!

We are litvish.

I grew up with very traditional foods too, but I don't recognize a few things from your list, I wonder if it's chassidish - chickpeas or radishes in the soup, and farfel, and onion with egg.

and potato kugel doesn't have to be by hand, liver doesn't have to be from mealmart LOL

I would add kishka to your list

So my mother didn't actually serve radishes and only occasionally she put out spicy chickpeas in a bowl. But I would see it at my grandmothers house, and also my dh's grandmother. Maybe it's a Hungarian thing? Who knows.

The farfel was pretty standard growing up. The egg salad was also standard, though my mother left out the raw egg. In my house it was made with oil, spices and a bit of paprika. Served in scoops. With a scoop of the Meal Mart chopped liver near it. I didn't know anyone else made chopped liver. Didn't Meal mart invent it? Scratching Head

When we wanted to be fancy, we cut slices of red peppers and put them like rings around the scoops of egg and liver.
And we had kishka very rarely. When we did, my father would make the kishka ( the one food he knew how to make).

chanchy123

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 8:44 am

Growing up we had the same thing ever week for years, every few years my mother would try something new and if it was successful we’d have that every single week for years. I personally get very bored having the same thing every week. We never have the same menu two weeks in a row and rarely the same dish two weeks in a row (except for white rice, I make that every week), also never ever the same food in the evening and morning. I don’t think my family cares, but it’s me who gets bored.

Our menu was like this:
Store bought challah
Avocado salad (this is Israel so it was seasonal)
Friday night sweet and sour meatballs
In winter (RH to Pesach) chicken soup
Two kinds of roasted or BBQ chicken (my mother would change the type of sauce - there was a selection of about five different sauces)
Rice (for years it was white rice and then for a good section of the 90s it was rice with an Indian flavor cube)
Roasted potatoes
Candied sweet potatoes
A large Israeli salad
A usually also a kugel - which would change every few years, potato, sweet noodle, spinach noodle, yerushalmi etc
At some point the kugel was replaced with a sort of stir fry
Dessert (this would vary - my mother is a fantastic baker) usually dessert would also include warm apple crisp, especially in winter
Day was the same thing minus the soup and meatballs.

If my grandmother was visiting from America sometimes we’d have chopped liver.
If there were many guests or on YT there would also be roasted brisket and probably more than one kugel.
On YT there would also be a roasted whole Turkey and stuffing.
For

amother

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 8:49 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Cool! I relate to the first part about every now and then trying a new recipe and if it was well received, making that every week.

Your menu is totally different though. Sounds yum!.can you share your background?

amother

Taupe

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 8:52 am

I am far from chassidish or heimish, but I remember my mother broiling liver to kasher it, and putting it thru the grinder to chop it. I am sure meal mart existed by that time, but we lived oot and no big kosher grocery around yet.
Actually I remember reading a letter in the Jewish Observer as a teen in the mid 90s bemoaning the fact that many young women didn't know about the need to kasher liver because they didn't grow up seeing this in the home.

keym

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 8:55 am

I was raised with basic
Challa
Gefilte fish
Cut up veggies
Chicken soup with all the vegetables
Baked chicken
A rotation of 3-4 kugels
Some sort of cooked veggie
Cake for dessert

But my grandparents were very American born and raised and proud of all the stuff that became available. They raised my mother in the 60s/70s and served the same food each week.
Bakery challa
Gefilte fish from the jar
Store bought cole slaw, cucumber salad, potato salad
Chicken soup with boxed knaidlach
Roast chicken, potato kugel, lukshen kugel
Cranberry sauce straight from a can
Some bakery layer cake.

Breakfast Shabbos morning they always had coffee cake and coffee.

Lunch was
Challa
Salads from the night before
Chopped liver, onions, and eggs (the liver they would kasher themselves every few weeks and put us to work chopping)
Cholent
Kishke
Cake.

So what's my minhag?

chanchy123

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 9:00 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I was born in Israel my parents made Aliyah from America, my grandmothers were both American my FFB great grandmother was also American. My mother is a fourth generation American, all frum. She made Israeli versions of what she ate growing up.

chanchy123

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 9:26 am

I think there is a big difference between those whose grandparents came from Europe and those whose grandparents were American, I mean even my great grandmother who was born in Europe was born in the UK.
My parents grew up in a completely American home, my grandparents probably had food like that, but not in my family. I could also tell the difference when I ate at my friends (I did that often), there were my friends whose grandparents were survivors and their parents served very traditional Eastern European fair, and my good friend whose mother was a convert from New England and they served none of the traditional foods.
My mother actually became more adventures in later years, especially since I have left home. She now serves several sefardi style dishes, salatim, and more.
I love making the foods I grew up with one in a while. I love how I can recreate the exact meals I grew up with.

keym

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 9:34 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Yup yup.
My husband and I are each 3rd and even 4th generation American.
And I think that America in the 50s had a surge of boxes and takeout that the "old time Jewish Americans" were very proud of using. You know modernity and all.
Jarred gefilte fish, boxed knaidel mix, boxed kugel mix, store bought cake and salads.
To both my grandmother and my husband's grandmother, it was a sign that they made it as Jewish Americans to be able to buy food for Shabbos. Similar to buying the washing machine and Hoover.

chanchy123

Thu, Jan 14 2021, 9:40 am

keym wrote:

Exactly, my grandmother’s latkes and kneidlach came from a box.