A Taste of Tradition

By Helaine Firestein
Binghamton University

On an evening almost two months ago, my extended family sat around the dining room table, having twelve different conversations about the same four topics: one cousin’s recent engagement, one cousin’s recent career change, one cousin’s impending college graduation, and the weather.

These were the same conversations we had had five months prior at our seder table, except that this time it was a different cousin who was graduating, and the weather was cooling down. It was late November, so I knew it must have been Thanksgiving. But it was not the plate of beautifully sliced dark-meat turkey that hinted at the holiday. That same plate sat in front of me (and next to the charoset) five months ago. (Don’t worry, it was just the same china, not the same turkey.) In fact, the only reason it felt like Thanksgiving was because my cousin, like clockwork, complained that we don’t have mashed potatoes like all of the "normal" American Thanksgiving dinners.

In my family, it doesn’t matter what holiday it is, we know what’s coming and the order in which it will be served. My friends cringe when I tell them I look forward to chopped liver, but it’s a good thing I have spent twenty years acquiring the taste. Doctored with eggs and onions, it is without fail the first thing on the table (with its faithful sidekick, gefilte fish), and if the chopped liver has yet to appeal to you, you are stuck waiting ten minutes for the matzah ball soup. Luckily, matzah ball soup is a favorite all year round.

And then comes the turkey. And the stuffing (always made with matzah meal). And the butternut squash (made with matzah meal only on Pesach, and trust me, we can taste the difference.). The moist meatloaf and appetizing asparagus, the incredible kugel and the breaded broccoli. "Oy enough, everything’s delicious, why don’t you sit down and eat something yourself….what? There’s more?" Out comes the flanken and the tzimmes. "Do you really think we needed mashed potatoes?"

The standard menu has come to serve as a source of comfort for my family. With the changing seasons, the changing years, the kinderlach (children) growing up and reaching new milestones, the menu is the one thing that always stays the same. And you can make all the faces you want at the chopped liver; I like it.

More recently, about a month after Thanksgiving, the same people sat around the same table. It was Chanukah. My clue? The golden-brown, fried-to-a-crisp latkes that stole the spotlight from every other usual item. A plate of those beauties with applesauce…that’s really all I needed. Who needs anything else? Well, my family does. It wouldn’t be a holiday without a "careful, the soup is hot!"

Only a few months until we’re around the table for yet another seder. Whoa, how time flies! This year, we’ll all be talking about my cousin’s recent wedding (which will probably overshadow the standard conversation topics.) But the standard menu? There’s no overshadowing that.

Helaine Firestein is a junior at Binghamton University majoring in Integrative Neuroscience. It's hard for her to narrow it down, but if she had to pick, her favorite dish is noodle kugel!

[Posted 1/25/12]