Pesach of yesteryear, Liverpool Jewish Gazette, March 14 1969
(Fifth in a series of articles)
Pesach tzum seder
Zanen mir alle fraylach!
Mine vybe is a malke
Und yich bin a maylach!
Chochmes hobben mir
A fullen zach
Und mir gayen zich tantzen
A hop chak chak!
When my mother started to sing this roundel again (and even my usually taciturn father hummed a line or two) I knew that Pesach was near. The small cramped kitchen would soon be restricted by a collection of barrels, tubs and containers.
Our kitchen, with minor variations, was to be seen reproduced in the district. The second door along the lobby, with its narrow strip of patterned linoleum, opened on to the hub of the family’s life - the kitchen. Turn the small, loose fitting brass door knob and to the left stood the dresser, fitted with two drawers and two cupboards. One of the drawers had a wooden knob missing and the cupboard door with a drop handles broken, showing only the metal back plate, opened easier than the other one, jammed shut with a piece of paper.
Then the scullery door whose latch, made out of alignment by much use, rarely dropped into the cut-out receiver first time, needing push or a lift up to function. Under the twelve-paned window looking out on to the small back yard, stood the kitchen table covered with ‘serater’ or American oiled cloth cover. The portions covering the table corners were worn and cracked by use showing the canvas backing in irregular patches.
To the left of the fireplace facing the door, was the cupboard stretching from floor to ceiling. The long upper part held the household china, carefully separated, whilst the bottom section, with its single shelf, was general repository for the miscellanea of a large growing family.
The head of the horsehaired stuffed sofa went under the alcove to the right, its padded back continuing along the right hand wall and the remaining length just held the baby’s ,much-battered high chair
Under the table and scattered round the red-tiled floor, uneven and slightly sunken in the centre stood the stout kitchen chairs. One at least was minus the curved wooden back and rails, leaving only the pointed back legs, and another, completely backless served as a substitute for a short pair of steps being conveniently pushed under the table when not in use.
Round the fireplace stood the wire-meshed guard with its curved brass rail, on which hung the inevitable washing. It was in the area between guard and fireplace that my mother placed her tubs and barrels containing the Pesach fare.
About six weeks beforehand they were collected from the cellar or the cubby-hole under the eaves entered by a low door on the half-landing of the stairs, and given a good clean out. When mead was made the whole house was pervaded with the heady odour or hops, brown sugar and honey being boiled on the heaped-up kitchen fire, whilst the bubbling froth was skimmed off with a wooden spoon newly purchased for the occasion.
Then the slow fermentation in an earthenware barrels, round ribbed, pattern decorated and spigot pierced near the bottom. There was at least either raisin or grape juice wine maturing and no doubt some of my readers will remember being sent to buy the ‘hayven’ or yeast needed at such times. When ready, the wine bottles - kept from year to year - were filled and the corks rammed home with a piece of white paper, for much use had reduced their elasticity and holding powers.
This was time for making cherry brandy, served only to visitors, the fruit being immersed in almost pure spirit bought from Carmel’s or Kauffman’s the winesellers. We children were later given the cherries and I well remember to this day biting the thickened pulp off the stone and savouring the intoxicating taste of the fruit flavoured with the moistening of the liquid itself.
Always there was the ‘rossel’, a regular standby for borsht served either cold or boiled and strengthened with a piece of thin top rib or flank. Who hasn’t memories of the home-made beetroot jam, the ‘ayngemachtz’, the ginger fingers, and the sugar coated ‘ingber’ fruits mother used to make? And the ‘fissnoge’, sometimes called ‘pitchar’, in its spiced jelly, lardered with cut pieces of hard boiled egg.
The preparation of this was a family effort in the kitchen, the atmosphere smelling of burning hair as the heavy bullock foot was plunged into the coal fire and quickly withdrawn. Now came the scraping of the think fire-browned skin and the labour of taking off the hoof, whose gluey smell was an addition to the hot-kitchen air.
What a ‘shyering’ and a scrubbing there was on Pesach eve! When old enough I helped to take down the Pesachdiker ‘kaylim’ and to wash the china taken out of their faded newspaper wrapping sometimes sticking obstinately to the rim of a cup or plate.
On the well-scrubbed shelves we pinned down white paper with the pierced frilled edges hanging in carefully matched overlapping curves.
That week was busy time for Axelrod’s, the chandler, selling a new ‘teppel’ or a ‘shissel’ or a frypan in which to make ‘matzo broch’ and “’inekochens’. My father used his cabinet maker’s scraper on the kitchen table top, which was covered with ,tishtach, even on cholhamoed days. A final, symbolic search with feather and candle, helped by myself - and firstborn - and we were Pesachdik!
With the arrival of the printed Pesach order from there was family council with myself as scribe to fill in the amount of matzos - baked in the round in those days - eggs, meal and suchlike. I read with delighted longings the names of luxury items we could not afford and now haven an idea of the pleasure it must have given my mother to have been able to order - at least once a year – with a prodigality backed by the tontine Pesach shareout which would pay the bill.
It was very important to me that we ordered the best quality hazel nuts, for they were rounder and heavier than the flat cheaper variety. They were not for eating of course but for the use as the currency in the street nut markets and for ‘gaming’. Up the spout was a winner when the heavy nut rattled down and won the stake, strewn round the depression cut out of the stone flag intended to take the down flow of the rain water. A round, solid nut gave one a good chance of knocking down the heaped up, pyramid set up by an optimist shouting “Have a shy! Have a shy!”
Only a heavyweight stood a chance when the game was ‘kapke’ and winnings had to be knocked out of the school cap containing the nuts.
The seder, as conducted by my father, was long and leisurely - not a word was missed out - and, though I managed the four ‘kashes’ and the early glasses of wine, the food and the excitement combined to produce a sleepy head, and in my younger days I was led protestingly to bed.
Then the happy occasion when I stayed awake to the absolute end! The water may have slaughtered the ox and the fire bitten the cat, but I’d made it! Half asleep and half bemused by the unaccustomed quantity of wine and the lateness of the hour and the magic of the seder ceremonial - what a thrill to have been able to spend the two zuzzim! And so upstairs to the bedroom lit by single candle light. As I slid under the ‘perrener’ to a place warmed by my younger brother, my last though was “I’ll do that again, and tomorrow night I’ll steal the afikoman!”