Tag #120518 - Interview #87387 (Rifca Segal)

And people ate fish. The Jewish tradition is to boil it, and especially the heads. I did that myself. First you boil a whole onion, until it is entirely soft. And it depends on how much fish you have, you boil so many onions. And after the onion is completely soft and after it gets cold enough, you strain it – by rubbing it. And almost all the onion is strained, if it is well boiled and soft. And after that you place this soup on the fire, you add a few peeled, washed potatoes, and you add the fish. The fish can be whole or sliced, depending on how you like it. You add a little sugar, pepper, salt, and after you stop boiling it and let it cool, the sauce becomes as thick as jelly, you can cut it with a knife. And this was done using the heads, mostly, for the heads are better for making that sauce turn to jelly.

And then, when I got married, I wanted to show I knew a thing or two – my husband wasn’t pretentious, on the contrary, he wouldn’t even let me do chores –, I prepared fish. But I also prepared fried fish. But I fried it using wheat flour, not corn flour. It is softer if you use wheat flour. It is very good if you use corn flour as well, but corn flour makes the fish harder. My aunt Rica taught me this. She is a perfect housewife. My mother was, too, but my aunt surpassed her when she baked sweets and anything else. And she told me: “If you want the fish to taste good, use wheat flour. For it makes it softer.” I slice the fish, I disembowel it, first I dip it into wheat flour, you need to beat 2-3 eggs separately, as many as you need, you dip it there – and it pays to let it there for longer, a quarter of an hour –, and then you dip it into wheat flour once more, after which you fry it. To be honest, I like fried fish better.