Tag #127960 - Interview #78014 (Matilda Israel)

My mother did almost all the household work at home. My sisters, of course, helped her, but most of them were married and lived elsewhere with their families. They didn't call her 'mom', because they were almost the same age as her, so they called her by her name. When she came to my father's house, she couldn't cook at all and my sisters laughed at her, but gradually she became an excellent cook. My sons still remember her dishes. I learned many Jewish dishes from her and passed many Sephardi recipes to my daughter-in- law. Some of them are: 'apio' - an hors d'oeuvre of celery and carrots, 'agristada' - white chicken meat with white sauce and gumbo, 'albondigitas con merengena' - veal meatballs with eggplant, 'pastel' - meat pastry, 'borecas' - cheese pastries, 'boicos' - cheese crackers, 'bormoelos' - made of matzah for Pesach, 'roskitas de alhashu' - sweets, 'the ears of Haman' - sweets for Purim, 'leche papeada' - condensed milk, 'friticas de prasa' - leek balls. We ate only kosher in my father's house. The chazzan slaughtered the animals. We all did the shopping from the Hali [covered market]. Everyone had their favorite butcher, from whom they bought meat and the kosher meat was marked with a purple seal. Most shops in Karnobat were small grocer's shops. Meat was sold in the Hali. There were also shops for dairy products, where you could buy yogurt that was so thick that it had to be cut with a knife and everyone went there with a baking dish to put it in.