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On Friday she baked some very nice, kneaded bread – coilici. [Ed. note: Coilici is a variant for challah, similar to the word „kajlics“ used by some Hungarian-speaking Jews in Romania. Both words have as origin the Hungarian word „kalacs“.] And when she lit the candles she placed them on the table and covered them; she lit the candles when she recited the prayer. She always used to light 6 candles on Friday evening. I forget why 6. [Ed. note: It is customary to light two candles, although some families light more, sometimes in accordance with the number of children]. She always lit candles on holidays.
We always had meat soup on Friday evening. There was also a vorspeiss [appetizer] – either some “essigfleisch”, or meatballs, pite [petcha, here is a variant of the calves' foot jelly], something. You cook a regular soup, you take the meat out of the soup together with a bit of soup, then add sour cherry preserve – it was the sour cherry that made it sour –, and you have essigfleisch. Pite [petcha] is as follows: after boiling the soup, you add an egg to the soup liquid and let it curdle, add some more lemon juice or a bit of vinegar, stir, and add the meat to the mix. This is usually cooked from entrails: joints, legs, neck. We ate the meat from the soup, and then there was stewed fruit and, if we had it, something sweet for desert. Usually, my mother prepared kighi [kugel]. It’s like a pudding, you prepare it on Saturday – you can use apples, or other fruit. And we had kighi at the end of the meal.
On Saturday, lunch consisted of a vorspeiss [appetizer] – whatever you had, you could even prepare a salad –, and then we had soup, meat with pickles, something, and then we had kighi. Saturday’s dinner was less pretentious, you ate whatever you had.
We always had meat soup on Friday evening. There was also a vorspeiss [appetizer] – either some “essigfleisch”, or meatballs, pite [petcha, here is a variant of the calves' foot jelly], something. You cook a regular soup, you take the meat out of the soup together with a bit of soup, then add sour cherry preserve – it was the sour cherry that made it sour –, and you have essigfleisch. Pite [petcha] is as follows: after boiling the soup, you add an egg to the soup liquid and let it curdle, add some more lemon juice or a bit of vinegar, stir, and add the meat to the mix. This is usually cooked from entrails: joints, legs, neck. We ate the meat from the soup, and then there was stewed fruit and, if we had it, something sweet for desert. Usually, my mother prepared kighi [kugel]. It’s like a pudding, you prepare it on Saturday – you can use apples, or other fruit. And we had kighi at the end of the meal.
On Saturday, lunch consisted of a vorspeiss [appetizer] – whatever you had, you could even prepare a salad –, and then we had soup, meat with pickles, something, and then we had kighi. Saturday’s dinner was less pretentious, you ate whatever you had.
Period
Location
Harlau, Botosani
Romania
Interview
Marim Haller
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