Flag of Ukraine
I was just reading about Ukraine, where my paternal ancestors came from. Their national dish, perogi, is what the Italians call ravioli.
DIY perogi/ravioli
You make the pasta envelope with a knife cutting squares which are folded into triangles. Or use a glass to cut circles. Fold them in half over the filling to make triangles. Press the edges together to prevent the filling falling out into the liquid when cooking. You can boil up your dumplings and then fry them.
The dish is popular all over Europe, including Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, as well as among Ashkenazi (Hebrew for German) Jews. Jews in London opened restaurants where you could eat chicken soup containing dumplings. You were offered the choice of kreplach (pasta pockets filled with minced meat) or kneidlach (solid dumplings or balls) - or both. I could not remember which dumplings were solid and which ones were filled, so I ordered both!
Both words, confusingly, start with the letter K. Both end with lach. How can I remember? I have just devised a memory aid. P for pocket. Pasta pocket. D for dumpling. Kneaded dumpling. So, kreplach are pockets, perogi. P.P.P. (Kneidlach are solid, kneaded dumplings. D. D. D.)
Why Were Jews In the UK?
A wave of Jews came over to the UK from Germany just before WW2. Many of them went into publishing.
A previous wave came over from Poland. The Russians had pushed out the Jews who went west. Some of them reached the USA. Others got the England's East coast ports of London and Hull. Or they had bought tickets to the USA but were cheated by the ticket sellers and ended up in England. I learned this from a local guide when I visited Hull when I was an active travel writer based in London, England.
The refugees were too tired or poor to travel further. They were welcomed by their compatriots and settled in the UK. Some moved on to the USA and South Africa. Others stayed and made the best of it. When they made money or went into trade and travelled, they moved from the poor East End of London near the port to the fresh air and green parks and big stores of the more expensive West End.
In WW2 the vast losses of Jews were in the concentration camps of Poland. The train lines took them from all over Europe to Poland. But, in any case, Poland is a large country and had pockets of Jews all over.
When I visited Australia I discovered that borsht, purple beetroot soup, which I associated with Jewish restaurants and delis in London, came from Russia as well as Poland. The Polish version is thick and creamy, with maybe potatoes and cream. The Russian version is a clear soup. I like the Polish version which is familiar to me from the UK.
Dumplings - Perogi
Back to the filled 'dumplings'. To me, the word dumplings implies solid balls. (In the delicatessen-restaurants, such as B & K in Edgware and Hatch End, chicken soup, the solid balls, often made of matzah meal of unleavened bread crackers) are called kneidlach.) By contrast, the perogi are pockets, are filled balls. Which in B & K would be called kreplach.
Now we come to the Purim connection. At the end of the Wikipedia article on the Ukrainian perogi, I discovered that for Purim, a favoured food is kreplach because of the symbolism of the hidden filling.
Well, now you and I know all about Ukrainian perogi, Purim, and food in the delicatessens and restaurants in London.
DIY Perogi/dumplings/ravioli/kreplach
The semi-circular crimped edges on the larger perogi can be made by pressing with a fingertip. On the tinier ones you can use the ends of a fork (the spokes are called tines).
Puirim Dates
In 2022, the feast or Purim starts the evening of Wednesday March 16 and continues through the day of Thursday March 17th. The dates vary each year. The Jewish calendar, like the Moslem and Chinese calendars, is used to calculate the festival dates according to lunar months.
Visit Kiev and Perogi and Kreplach In London, England
Meanwhile you can look at Ukraine and Kiev online. I hope that you and I can one day visit Kiev (the Ukrainians want us to spell it their way, Kyiv).
Meanwhile, you can enjoy ravioli and think of perogi, and eat kreplach in B & K in Edgware and Stanmore in England and from supermarkets. Whilst Jews and their friends and neighbours in London are enjoying festive foods, such as the kreplach, and triangular pastries with poppy seeds, called Haman's ears, over in the Netherlands you can see a painting of Mordecai.
See The Painting of Mordecai In Amsterdam
If you are in the Netherlands at the Rembrandt museum you can see Rembrandt's painting, of the triumph of Mordecai on horseback. Mordecai was the uncle of Esther, I remembered, but Wiki says her cousin. She was the favourite (secretly Jewish) concubine of the king. (Which king? Ahasueros. When? Five hundred years BC. Where? In Persia, now Iran. So, which king? Maybe Xerxes.)
Mordecai's and Esther's (Purim) Story
Mordecai had warned her that Haman, the king's main adviser, had planned to kill all the Jews in the country, because Mordecai had refused to bow down to Haman as a King. (Frankly, a bad move on the part of Mordecai.) Mordecai, apparently, only bowed down to God, not to a man who was declaring he was God.
Don't worry about it. The story might simply be a legend. It is in the Apocrypha, the semi-holy books which are not part of the main bible, or to Christians the Old Testament. But the legend, or historical story, is so popular that various groups print it as an extra to the old books of the bible, printed in English nowadays, originally approved by the Council of Trent in about the year 300 after Jesus.
Back to the story. The heroine, tearful Esther, after starving herself for three days, went unbidden to the king. A dangerous thing to do. Wives had to wait to be called. But the king, sitting chatting to his minister Haman, was pleased by the diversion. Instead of killing her for her effrontery, he beckoned her to sit beside him.
Haman was sent away, out of the room, or, at least out of earshot. Esther's chance to speak! Esther whispered to the king, that somebody was planning to kill her beloved people!
The king, who wisely, or unwisely, consulted advisers before making a decision. On matters of life and death. He called Haman and asked, 'What should be done with a wicked man?' And, 'What should be done with a man to be honoured!'
Haman, thinking that he would be the honoured man, said that the wicked man should be killed. But the honoured man should be paraded through the streets on horseback.
It was done. (Karma.)
So Esther, risking her own life, had saved her people. And her uncle, Mordecai, was honoured.
Purim
Enjoy the telling of the story, the symbolic food. The classic painting of Rembrandt depicting the Triumph of Mordecai.
Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreplach
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/welsh-cakes-recipe
The Author - Angela Lansbury
