The Grandma Zone

This is likely quite old, as my grandmother has written “Spry” instead of “vegetable shortening” or “Crisco”. Spry was a brand of vegetable shortening that was popular from the 1930s - 1960s. I have struggled to interpret the recipe because it is not written in a particularly organized way and is very vague, written haphazardly on both sides. This, too, speaks of this scrap of paper being quite old. My grandmother was an excellent cook, and had an eye for order and organization and I suspect would have written this down differently later in life. Anyway, fruit pie is one of the few desserts I am fairly comfortable with, so in the instructions I will be drawing on my own experience making pies when there are gaps to fill.

Beverly is my mother. My mother was a good cook, but didn’t have much patience for the process nor passion for the result, so there are very few recipes that I have that are distinctly hers. This recipe is one of the rare few, and my grandmother evidently kept a copy in her recipe box. The relish was always on the table for Rosh Hashanah and Thanksgiving, although I myself have not made it lately. It’s a nice alternative to the widely-available weird squiggly canned cranberry sauce, but I will admit that I have a strange affection for the canned stuff, too.

I do not recognize the handwriting on this note, although it strikes me as the writing of someone whose first language was probably Yiddish, written in the Hebrew script who studied the Roman letterset from typewritten or printed text. This means it is most likely the handwriting of either my great Aunt Bessie, my great Aunt Ida (unlikely), or my great grandmother, for whom I am named. I say that Aunt Ida is unlikely because she was brain damaged at the age of 9, probably in a pogrom. My grandfather refused to talk about it. The use of “Spry” in place of the more generic term “vegetable shortening” is a clue that this piece of paper is quite old. Spry was a competitor to the Crisco brand that got its start in the 1930s and peaked in popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. I don’t think the brand survived to the end of the 1960s. My great grandmother died in 1955, so it could be hers.

My grandma was not much for the whole mid-20th century jello mold thing. And this recipe was not stained and the paper was not crumpled like it had seen much use. But I’m including it because it sure is interesting if you’re into this sort of thing… the borscht as an ingredient makes this fascinatingly Ashkenazi. The directions are somewhat confusing, so I am transcribing them verbatim and will offer an opinion (untested!) as to what they mean below.

This one is very short and contains no cooking instructions because I suspect she just put it inside the turkey rather than cooking it separately. Personally, I feel like this would be better with some chopped up celery and I'd probably cut that shortening with a fair amount of schmaltz. But I'm leaving that up here as a suggestion because I want the recipe to stay true to what my grandmother wrote. I am borrowing the instructions for my own Passover Stuffing Recipe. This recipe has been retrieved from my grandmother's recipe boxes and the original paper (images below) was heavily spattered with food and almost illegible. I have rephrased it without changing any ingredients or techniques into a more traditional recipe format.

This one is very short and contains no cooking instructions because, like her other turkey stuffing recipe, I suspect she just put it inside the turkey rather than cooking it separately. I am borrowing the instructions for my own Passover Stuffing Recipe. I decided to transcribe this recipe mostly because I was struck by the scrap of paper it was written on - a day-by-day calendar sheet. I have rephrased it without changing any ingredients or techniques into a more traditional recipe format.

My grandmother always served baked apples for dessert after Shabbas dinner. It's an extremely simple and healthy recipe that can be served hot or cold. We make one apple per person, but you can always make more to refridgerate them for Saturday! She never put any seasoning on the apples since they're quite yummy without any additions, but obviously things like cinnamon-sugar would go well over these. You can use any sort of apple - my grandmother always used red delicious since those were always the nicest apples in our area of the country.

A truly classic version. Also makes a truly obscene quantity, so consider scaling this down if you're not cooking for an event or an army.

I make my chicken soup in a 12 quart pot. That's huge. Most people have an 8 quart soup pot, maybe a 10. So, you will likely need to scale it back. I also do this almost entirely by feel - I know I've got the right amounts in by looking. I'll try to guestimate as well as possible amounts, but as a benchmark, know that the soup pot is pretty full of ingredients (with lots of airspace, of course) by the time it's time to add the water. This was transcribed from phone calls with my grandmother when I had just graduated college, so there is no scrap of paper to photograph. I just have it written in my own hand, from long ago, somewhere. I've made it so many times that I don't need to look... I'm putting this here for everyone else's reference.

This excellent pareve dish has some things in common with Jennie Grossinger's truly inspired mock-liver recipe. (The Grossinger recipe uses sardines to outstanding and totally unidentifiable effect. It's the best mock-liver I've ever had.) In both cases using a food processor makes the recipe much easier with no sacrifice on the results.

Unlike the herring dish, the chopped liver really does benefit from hand chopping. It's not meant to be a puree, and hand chopping provides the correct texture. Use a mezza luna in a wooden bowl, ideally.

This is an easy recipe, and it doesn't require much in the way of ingredients or equipment. However, there is a critical step at the end where you must take care not to curdle the eggs by adding them too quickly to hot liquid... you'll see what I mean. This is a thin lemony soup that is most frequently served chilled with a splash of milk to thicken it, although it can be served warm. This is one of the Grandma Zone recipes that I learned directly from my grandmother many years ago.

Once upon a time fish was inexpensive and this was a great way to stretch a meal on a budget. Even though fish is now expensive, this is still a great recipe to use for when you have fish leftovers... handy for not wasting that expensive piece of fish! Unlike a lot of fish, the recipe scales pretty easily.

It seems that if you are going to make frozen drinks, you'd need to pour them into their glasses before freezing. But I don't know, having not made this particular recipe. I added that suggestion into the directions, just in case.

Grandma made this all the time, but it was a staple on shabbos.

I remember her making these on occasion, especially in the latter half of Pesach. They were simple but tasty. The instructions are a bit vague.

"Luchshen" is Yiddish for noodle, and a "kugel" is a casserole. There are a great variety of luchshen kugels out there... and they can be either sweet or savory, or somewhere in between. My grandmother's kugel is a fairly simple one, and falls in the 'somewhere in between' category. It's a reliable old favorite that is easy to make, complements many dishes and refrigerates well. She made it every shabbos without fail.

Hey, sometimes we don't have a box of matzah ball mix lying around. It happens.

My guess is that it's a cookie (biscuit) and it ought to get baked at 350 °F for 10 - 15 min or so? I may have to just try that to see. Also, dry oatmeal? Cooked oatmeal? Normally, dry oats are referred to as rolled oats and cooked oats are oatmeal, but not only is this scrap probably 70+ years old and language shifts, if my grandmother got this recipe from her inlaws (as I am guessing from the 'glass' measurements), there could have been a language barrier, to boot. Anyway, to say the instructions are incomplete is a bit of an understatement.

This recipe has just about the shortest ingredient list and instructions imaginable. And it's barely legible. But if you're into minimalism, here you go - and really, potato, eggs, salt and fat is always a winning combination.

My grandmother served this dish every Pesach and Rosh Hashanah as one of many courses before the main meal. This dish had been served for many decades before I arrived on the scene, so that is a very old envelope! In those days, kosher chickens were bought from kosher butchers instead of big chain stores like Trader Joe's. (Chain stores did not carry kosher meat, so if you did not live in an area with a large Jewish population, you bought a stand-alone freezer and had your meat shipped in 3 - 4 X's a year from the nearest metro area with a kosher butcher.) When you bought a chicken, be it whole or cut up, it always came with its necks, pupiks (gizzards) and occasionally even feeseleh (feet). My grandmother would collect up the small parts from the shabbos chickens and freeze them separately, amassing quite a bit of material to be cooked up twice a year on the two holidays. Now I think you would have to order these parts expressly from a kosher butcher, and no, I have no idea as to what quantities, much to my sadness. She would serve this over a bed of white rice in delicate fine china high sided handled soup bowls. Individual servings would be around 1/3 of a cup over the rice. Wing bones were removed, but not neck bones. The bowls were served on saucers, and you sucked the meat from the neck bones and placed the little bones on the saucer. Despite its humble roots, this dish was very popular - even the kids would ask for seconds. This recipe is scant on both quantities and directions. I recall her talking about proportions in this - e.g. 2 necks to so many pupiks and feet. In part this is because the quantity of pupiks and necks was indeterminate due to how they were acquired. The meatballs were very small, no more than 3/4 of an inch, perhaps smaller, and they were seasoned although how is not mentioned on this envelope. I think for this recipe I will merely transcribe, rather than try to fill in.

Yes. Yes that is quite a lot of margarine. It tastes fantastic, if your arteries can handle it. This recipe has been retrieved from my grandmother's recipe boxes and the original paper (images below) was heavily spattered with food and almost illegible. I have rephrased it without changing any ingredients or techniques into a more traditional recipe format.

Having now made this myself, I can say that butter is the obvious choice unless you are baking for a fleishig meal. Butter represents a significant upgrade in flavor. You might try coconut oil in place of shortening if you like the flavor, but I have not tried this myself. They're outstanding, by the way. Don't let the rolled oats deter you.

For my formative years we had this recipe every Rosh Hashana and Thanksgiving. I'd looked through my grandmother's recipe boxes a few times in search of it, but didn't find it until now, 10 years after her passing. I'm so happy that I found it that I am using it to inaugurate a new section of my site called "The Grandma Zone" which will consist of recipes I have of hers, or those I find in her recipe boxes, many of whom she attributes to various friends who have now also passed on. This recipe has been retrieved from my grandmother's recipe boxes and the original paper (images below) was heavily spattered with food and almost illegible. I have rephrased it without changing any ingredients or techniques into a more traditional recipe format.