Re: [Cz-L] Mamaliga

Here is a snippet from my late mother Pearl Spiegel Fichman's book,
Before Memories Fade, writing about mamaliga, and events during her
early years living on the Mehlplatz:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember my earliest playmate, a boy with the nickname Bunziu,
probably Benno, son of a restaurateur. Around the square used to be a
stop for carts, with a pair of Belgian draft horses each. There may
have been 10 to 15 drivers coming out every morning and waiting there
for business. They used to be called upon to move furniture or
transport crates for businessmen. Of course, they would come into
that restaurant for food, but more often for beer. They would sit
around, smoke, talk, joke. When a customer came, he would call on the
driver from this inn. Bunziu Ellenberg was the only child of the
owners.

I would come down and we would play together. Sometimes his mother
would call him in to eat and I would share his meal just as he
sometimes ate in my house. One day I came home and told my Mother
that I had eaten something wonderful in Bunziu's house.

What was it Mrs. Ellenberg treated you to?
Mamaliga with something - little ones - like this...

I did not know what it was, but it tasted like ambrosia. Mother asked
and was told that I had mamaliga with mushrooms and sour cream. Thus
started my love=2 0for mushrooms, which to this day is one of my
favorite foods. Of course, in Europe, the peasants would pick them
fresh after the rain and bring them the same day to market. Those
really tasted special. What is mamaliga? Yellow corn mush, the
national dish of Romania.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

My mother was also, as a child, very afraid of the Belgian draft horses . . .

Eytan Fichman, AIA
B.Arch., M.Arch., Ed.M.

-----Original Message-----
From: hegma2_at_pacific.net.au
To: Merle Kastner <merlek_at_videotron.ca>
Cc: Czernowitz List <czernowitz-l_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Sun, Oct 4, 2009 8:36 am
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] Malai
Dear Arthur et al.,
probably most on the list are not the original Czernowitzers and most
messages don't relate to all of us. But food,- ahhh!Now you are talking to
all of us,- all generations, to all our stomachs and memories from all
over Bucovina.
I have tried to make my mother's malai for ages, but none of the recipes
seem to be like hers. Can anyone oblige?
As someone already pointed out, corn meal/polenta is a very good low-GI/
low calorie (without the schmetten) foodstuff and as I am on a weighloss
diet I use it all the time. I us
e mamaliga with meat sauces as well as
with low-fat dairy,- but amazingly didn't find it in the Romanian
restaurants when we were there! Like 'mititei' and vinite salad,, they
thought it was too common a food for visitors! Little do they know!
My family has learned to love it too.

Malvina- ex-Romanian,- daughter of a Bukoviner,- Australia.

-snip-
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Received on 2009-10-04 19:01:38