In My Mother's Kitchen: Matzo Ball Soup
Somehow the last two posts ended up being a brief history of growing up Jewish in North Dakota, so I thought I'd continue with the last explicitly Jewish food currently in my backlog, matzo ball soup.
Matzo ball soup was mostly just for Passover when I was growing up. My mother made her matzo balls straight from the Manischewitz kit. Sure, she added a lot of vegetables (carrots, celery, occasionally the little onions) and usually had fresh chicken broth to cook the matzo balls in, but the matzo balls themselves were exactly as listed on the box. I myself make matzo ball soup straight from the kit with some frequency, using the same methods. Frankly, I've never had home made matzo balls that were dramatically better than the ones from kit.
Why do I make it year round while my mother pretty much reserved it for Pesach? The difference is that growing up in North Dakota it's not like matzo ball soup mix was on the shelves at every grocery store year round. Typically there would be a small window prior to Pesach when things like macaroons, matzo, gefilte fish and matzo ball soup mix were available on the shelf. Mom and everyone else in the local Jewish community would get enough to get through Pesach and two weeks later it was all gone until the next year. By comparison, here in Ohio even the local grocery stores on the west side of Cleveland (which compared to the east side is bereft of Jews) has a small stock of Jewish soul food available year round, including matzo ball soup. I stock up during Passover because it's a lot cheaper, not because it's my only chance. This fact solely explains why I get make matzo soup a lot more often than my mother did. Even if she were inclined to make them from scratch, that would still require matzo meal, which was also only available in the Pesach window.
It's increasingly hard to remember what it was like pre-internet. For example, nowadays if someone saw a box of matzo on the shelf and had no idea what it was, the smart phone in their pocket would tell them within seconds. That obviously wasn't the case back in the 1980s. My mother once saw someone at the grocery store in the two week window of Pesach food availability with a shopping cart filled to brim with boxes of matzo. My mother didn't recognize him, and matzo not typically being high on the list of favorite foods of even the most enthusiastic lovers of Pesach, she assumed that he must be someone Jewish who was new in town and hadn't stopped at the synagogue yet. Instead he told her that matzo was the perfect diet cracker, and he didn't understand why it wasn't available year round, so he always bought every box he could find when it was in the store. I don't think my mother clued him in to the real purpose of matzo.
On a side note, if you are bored with regular matzo ball soup the Indian variant is also quite delicious, and a lot tangier.
Matzo ball soup was mostly just for Passover when I was growing up. My mother made her matzo balls straight from the Manischewitz kit. Sure, she added a lot of vegetables (carrots, celery, occasionally the little onions) and usually had fresh chicken broth to cook the matzo balls in, but the matzo balls themselves were exactly as listed on the box. I myself make matzo ball soup straight from the kit with some frequency, using the same methods. Frankly, I've never had home made matzo balls that were dramatically better than the ones from kit.
Why do I make it year round while my mother pretty much reserved it for Pesach? The difference is that growing up in North Dakota it's not like matzo ball soup mix was on the shelves at every grocery store year round. Typically there would be a small window prior to Pesach when things like macaroons, matzo, gefilte fish and matzo ball soup mix were available on the shelf. Mom and everyone else in the local Jewish community would get enough to get through Pesach and two weeks later it was all gone until the next year. By comparison, here in Ohio even the local grocery stores on the west side of Cleveland (which compared to the east side is bereft of Jews) has a small stock of Jewish soul food available year round, including matzo ball soup. I stock up during Passover because it's a lot cheaper, not because it's my only chance. This fact solely explains why I get make matzo soup a lot more often than my mother did. Even if she were inclined to make them from scratch, that would still require matzo meal, which was also only available in the Pesach window.
It's increasingly hard to remember what it was like pre-internet. For example, nowadays if someone saw a box of matzo on the shelf and had no idea what it was, the smart phone in their pocket would tell them within seconds. That obviously wasn't the case back in the 1980s. My mother once saw someone at the grocery store in the two week window of Pesach food availability with a shopping cart filled to brim with boxes of matzo. My mother didn't recognize him, and matzo not typically being high on the list of favorite foods of even the most enthusiastic lovers of Pesach, she assumed that he must be someone Jewish who was new in town and hadn't stopped at the synagogue yet. Instead he told her that matzo was the perfect diet cracker, and he didn't understand why it wasn't available year round, so he always bought every box he could find when it was in the store. I don't think my mother clued him in to the real purpose of matzo.
On a side note, if you are bored with regular matzo ball soup the Indian variant is also quite delicious, and a lot tangier.