(Left to right: My mother Ida Miller, Aunt Hazel, Aunt Tick and Aunt Regime
Back row left to right: Uncle Charlie, Uncle Harry Maze, Jack Glob, and My father I. R. Miller)
by Lynn Ruth Miller
copyright Lynn Ruth Miller 1999
First Serial Rights
Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights begins December 4th this year. The holiday celebrates the double miracle that took place in 165 B.C.E. when the tiny Jewish army rousted the Syrians from Israel. Although there was only enough oil for one night when they rededicated the holy temple, the light burned for eight days. Our family gathered at my house to light the candles to celebrate those eight nights and sing joyous songs about how brave the Maccabees were to lead the Jews to victory. All that hoopla was the preamble to the holiday feast my mother had been cooking all week. I have long suspected that the reason she insisted we sing and dance with so much energy was to whip up a good appetite for the food on her table.
It is said that the definition of a Jewish holiday is, We fought; We won; Lets eat! It was those last two words that spurred my mother to culinary achievements that deserved as much notice in the history books as the triumph of our people. This particular holiday was the most severe test of Mothers culinary skills because it demanded eight festive traditional dairy dinners, but my mother met the challenge. She created spectacular banquets for the entire family every single night, each one more delicious than the one before. She dazzled us all with her blintzes, latkes, kugels and cheesecakes even during World War II with its rationing and food shortages. However, the year the war ended, there was dissension in the ranks. Her two younger sisters decided it would be fairer to rotate from one family to the other.
My mother was horrified. If this happened, she would have to deal with all the leftovers no one ate at her dinner. She had managed to convince us that we were eating freshly prepared foods every night, when in reality they were artfully disguised remainders. The potato pancakes we demolished the first night became a potato pudding the next and dumplings in the soup the next. At the last dinner anyone with a shred of digestive sense avoided every molded salad, fried patty and casserole with red gravy. Most dangerous however, were those funny colored spice cakes drenched in boiled frosting. Their texture was strange indeed and their effect lethal.
On this particular Hanukkah, my Aunt Tick suggested that the family meet at her home for the first night of the festival and my Aunt Hazel objected.
We’re the ones who have a television set, she said. If we eat at my house, we can watch Betty Hutton on the Ed Sullivan show after dinner. Hazel! said my mother. We can’t watch television on the night of a holiday. We are all supposed to contemplate the miracle of the Maccabean victory and the eternal light. What would the rabbi say?
I won’t invite him, said Aunt Hazel. Well, I already did, said my mother. So its settled. Well eat here.
We don’t have a television set, said Aunt Tick.
You can’t make blintzes, said my mother. You cant even do a decent waffle.
I’ve been practicing, said Aunt Tick. Harry says mine are better than his mothers. Girls, girls, said my father who was a born mediator. We can settle this very easily. We will have a blintz contest. The one who gets the largest number of blintzes out of one cup of batter, can have all eight dinners at her house.
Before anyone could say a word, my mother cried, What a marvelous idea! We can have the contest here this weekend.
Aunt Hazel opened her mouth to object but my mother silenced her.
I have the gas stove, she said. And the pan. Now, my mothers blintz pan was a seasoned frying pan black with soot. She insisted that the secret to her blintzes resided in that magic pan because she never washed it. Her blintzes were so thin she had been known to get 32 pancakes out of one recipe. My Aunt Tick gave Aunt Hazel a significant look.
Fine, she said. But I will use my own recipe . . And I’m bringing my own pan, said Aunt Tick.
The next Friday night, the 3 sisters donned their aprons and gathered around my mothers stove. Each had prepared her own batter and greased her own pan. The tasting committee consisted of the three husbands, the children and our dog. You’re first, Tick, said my father and my little aunt nodded, her color high. She set out a paper towel on the counter to catch the pancakes and began flipping. The recipe says the yield is one dozen pancakes but my tiny aunt managed to turn out 30, one short of my mothers record. Triumphant, she held one up to the light and it was thin as tissue paper.
Good work, honey, said my proud Uncle Harry. I’ll go home and start polishing the silver for next week.
Not so fast, said my feisty Aunt Hazel. I wasn’t ping pong champion of Warren High School for nothing.
What does that have to do with it? said my mother, but her face paled and I could see her hand shaking as it clutched her weathered pan.
Watch, said Aunt Hazel.
Those pancakes flew through the air, thin as cirrus clouds. When they landed, we counted them. Thirty. My aunt brushed the drops of sweat from her brow and smiled.
I’ll take the first four nights, Tick. You can have the last.
My mother squared her shoulders. My turn, she said and a silence fell in our kitchen. My mother walked to her stove and took the stance of the champion she was. We all stood back to give her elbow room and she began. Well, I can still remember the rapid fire of those floating pancakes, so light they landed all over the counter and floated over to the kitchen table. One drifted on top of the dog and another hit my father on the arm. There were two on top of the ice box and we found ten scattered like broken balloons in the dining room across the hall. In seconds, all the batter was gone and we rushed from room to room to collect the results.
I count 42, said my Uncle Harry.
You forgot the six in the dining room and the one hanging from the kitchen light, I said. I think there were five on the dining room chairs and two under the buffet.
What about those three on the bread box? said my mother. And I see two on the dining room chandelier.
The dog ate four of them, said my father. So the grand total is 65. He put his arms around my defeated aunts. Sorry girls, he said.
Well, we had the eight day celebration at our house that year and every year after that until I married. That year, I took my mothers recipe and tried my hand at making blintzes. I got eight from the recipe and they were so thick I could have sold them to Goodyear Tire.
I called my mother. How did you ever manage to get 65 pancakes out of so little batter? I asked.
How did Judah Maccabee get that light to burn for eight days? asked my mother.
God knows, I said.
Right, said my mother.
Published in U S Legacies Magazine December 2005
- Log in to post comments