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Here, in Botosani, most Jewish women baked homemade bread for Saturday, it was called hala [challah]. My mother baked as well, either kneaded bread or rolls. She baked less often after the war, she used to buy the bread. You place two loaves of bread on the table and you cover them. After we returned from the synagogue, my father performed the prayer ritual for the wine, drank some wine, then he recited a prayer [for the bread] and sliced the bread.
Usually, on Friday, after baking the bread – for that’s how it was in my days, when I was a child, people used brick ovens –, over-religious Jews finished [preparing] the food, absolutely everything necessary for the Saturday meal, they placed the food [what they ate for lunch on Saturday] in the oven – it was called cholent. You took the bread out of the oven, you took absolutely everything out of the oven, you oiled the oven door, placed the food inside and retrieved it on Saturday at noon. That was in order not to light the fire, for we are not allowed to light a fire on Saturdays. My parents didn’t make cholent, I won’t lie to you, they simply didn’t; my grandparents prepared it every now and then. Usually, they prepared an appetizer, it depends on what we had in the house. This is what we prepared from eggs: you beat raw eggs, mixed them with vinegar and boiled them, and they thickened, turned into a sort of glycerin, sometimes you also added the legs of a rooster or chicken – it was called petcha. And then we had soup and meat with beans or something else as a side dish for second course.
There are 2 ways to prepare petcha. They also call petcha meat jelly, when you take the marrow from the shin of a cow’s front legs – for Jews don’t eat the hind legs –, you boil it, and what you get is also petcha, a meat jelly.
My mother always lit candles on Friday evening. She lit 3 candles. These [the number of lit candles] are customs. Some light 5 candles, as the Torah, the Holy Scroll, is divided into hamushim – that’s how the books are called – and many people light 5 candles because there are 5 books, 5 hamushim.
This is a custom, these customs are called menugam – the translation of menugam is custom. Jews had standard customs – which you have to observe – but there are “z” customs that people observed – they did things like this somewhere, like that somewhere else.
Usually, on Friday, after baking the bread – for that’s how it was in my days, when I was a child, people used brick ovens –, over-religious Jews finished [preparing] the food, absolutely everything necessary for the Saturday meal, they placed the food [what they ate for lunch on Saturday] in the oven – it was called cholent. You took the bread out of the oven, you took absolutely everything out of the oven, you oiled the oven door, placed the food inside and retrieved it on Saturday at noon. That was in order not to light the fire, for we are not allowed to light a fire on Saturdays. My parents didn’t make cholent, I won’t lie to you, they simply didn’t; my grandparents prepared it every now and then. Usually, they prepared an appetizer, it depends on what we had in the house. This is what we prepared from eggs: you beat raw eggs, mixed them with vinegar and boiled them, and they thickened, turned into a sort of glycerin, sometimes you also added the legs of a rooster or chicken – it was called petcha. And then we had soup and meat with beans or something else as a side dish for second course.
There are 2 ways to prepare petcha. They also call petcha meat jelly, when you take the marrow from the shin of a cow’s front legs – for Jews don’t eat the hind legs –, you boil it, and what you get is also petcha, a meat jelly.
My mother always lit candles on Friday evening. She lit 3 candles. These [the number of lit candles] are customs. Some light 5 candles, as the Torah, the Holy Scroll, is divided into hamushim – that’s how the books are called – and many people light 5 candles because there are 5 books, 5 hamushim.
This is a custom, these customs are called menugam – the translation of menugam is custom. Jews had standard customs – which you have to observe – but there are “z” customs that people observed – they did things like this somewhere, like that somewhere else.
Location
Botosani
Romania
Interview
Solomon Meir
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