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At home we used to have a lot of books – my father’s were in German and Bulgarian and I used to have my children’s books and magazines. Additionally, my father liked reading nespapers very much. I remember the caricatures in the ‘Papagal’ [Parrot] newspaper. They used to buy a lot of other newspapers like ‘Zora’ [Dawn] [8], ‘Utro’ [Morning] [9] and one of the reasons were the crosswords – my father’s favorite pastime. My mother was reading a lot and she used to be his constant consultant in this pastime of his. We had also stored some communist books belonging to uncle Mois, in order to keep them hidden. And here I can tell you an interesting story. The action takes place in the 1940s. At that time the so-called [police] blockades were taking place looking for politically unreliable individuals and evidence against them. Then my father wasn’t going to work and I was very happy because we were taking walks around our house to find some confectionery. He would buy me a chocolate bar and in these bars there were pictures that we would stick to a poster with the dream of getting a bicycle if we succeeded in covering the whole poster with pictures, without realizing, without understanding that daddy remained home because of that blockade. We were trembling with fear that if the police came home, they would find uncle Mois’s communist books. That is why we had carefully hidden them behind my children’s books but mum was using another excuse too. As my father was ill, whenever there was a knock at the door, she made him lie on the bed and said, ‘My husband is ill, this is a children’s bookcase’ and somehow they showed understanding and would leave us alone.
Our homes were always furnished modestly and it wasn’t necessary to put great efforts into keeping them neat and tidy. My mother used to do that as well as the cooking. From her I learned a recipe for leek croquettes. [In Ladino these croquettes are known as ‘Friticas di Pras’] Here is the recipe: you chop and boil two onions and six sticks of leek. You squeeze them well to get rid of the water. You grind them with a meat-mincing machine together with a boiled potato. You add two eggs and 300-400 grams of minced meat, but you can prepare them without meat if you wish. You form croquettes, roll them in flour and fry them, but as my mother had colitis, we would bake them in an oiled baking dish and on every croquette we would drip a few drops of oil. A washerwoman called Evtima used to come once a week. She used to always eat with us at the table. This was at the insistence of my father who was a democrat in his convictions.
Our homes were always furnished modestly and it wasn’t necessary to put great efforts into keeping them neat and tidy. My mother used to do that as well as the cooking. From her I learned a recipe for leek croquettes. [In Ladino these croquettes are known as ‘Friticas di Pras’] Here is the recipe: you chop and boil two onions and six sticks of leek. You squeeze them well to get rid of the water. You grind them with a meat-mincing machine together with a boiled potato. You add two eggs and 300-400 grams of minced meat, but you can prepare them without meat if you wish. You form croquettes, roll them in flour and fry them, but as my mother had colitis, we would bake them in an oiled baking dish and on every croquette we would drip a few drops of oil. A washerwoman called Evtima used to come once a week. She used to always eat with us at the table. This was at the insistence of my father who was a democrat in his convictions.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Reyna Lidgi