[Cz-L] The Czernowitz-L Bukovina Jewish Cook Book, volume 2

To the Bukovina Jewish Cook Book, volume 2, I would like to add the following story.

Foie d'oie (goose Liver)

I was raised by my grandmother till the age of 9. She instilled in me the love of food.
I followed her like a pappy dog, watched her every move. I watched her how she conserved the summer fruit and in the fall the sauerkraut and the pickles.
Late in the summer my grandmother would walk from Czernowitz to one of nearby villages and return with at least 2 geese. Near her house she had a storeroom where she placed those geese. Every morning and evening she would force feed those geese with crushed corn. She would mix the corn with sunflower oil to make a patty and stuff it down the throat of the geese. After 2 or 3 months she would have the geese slaughtered. After cleaning and koshering, she would remove the liver. The liver was white and the size of a football. Also the goose was very fat, so she would render the fat. In the fat she would cook the liver. When it cooled down she would insert the liver into a large glass jar and she would poor the fat on top. This was her way of preserving the goose liver. In her cellar she had at least 5 or 6 jars like this. The rest of the goose she would place in a smoking chamber to smoke it, preserving it. On festive occasions we would eat the
 goose liver, by smearing goose fat on a slice of challah and top it with a piece of goose liver. This was heaven, orgasmic is my only description.
Moving forward 40 years. We lived in Germany not far from the border with France. On one Sunday we run out of bread, our neighbors told us that the only place where you could get bread would be in France. We drove to the nearest village which was Wissenburg, Alsace. We arrived late; no bread, all the bakeries were closed as they run out of bread.
We were hungry so we looked for a restaurant. We found a One Star Michelin Guide restaurant in a side street. The place was full but they arranged a table on the patio, we were seated and given a menu. I opened the menu and the first thing that I saw was “La terrine de foie gras d'oie” (terrine of goose liver) WAW.
Of course we ordered it; the waiter arrived with a large china tray which was fashioned like a goose with head and wings, in the tray there was a crystal jar with goose liver. He placed “deux cuillères de foie d'oie” (two spoonfuls of goose liver) on a plate and on the side he placed cubes of aspic and several slices of baguette which had walnuts in it.
The first taste… WOW… I saw my grandmother, I saw those jars stuffed with goose liver and goose fat, and it was Shabes, Heaven.

      
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Received on 2010-06-21 05:37:47