Just a note about what may be Oliver Sack’s last published work, or at least the last thing that he wrote that was published most recently. It’s a piece in the New Yorker (free access) called “Filter Fish“. It is of course about the Jewish dish gefilte fish (something I can’t abide, but always call “filter fish” too). Sacks loved the stuff, but only the homemade version, and preferably made by his mother. It’s interesting that, at the end of his life, Sacks, still a nonbeliever, turned to his cultural Jewish roots. Do remember that his last New York Times piece was called “Sabbath.”
Here he draws full circle between the “filter fish” that sustained him in his childhood and then at the terminus of his life. Do read the whole piece, but here are the last three paragraphs, which I find deeply moving.
But now, in what are (barring a miracle) my last weeks of life—so queasy that I am averse to almost every food, with difficulty swallowing anything except liquids or jellylike solids—I have rediscovered the joys of gefilte fish. I cannot eat more than two or three ounces at a time, but an aliquot of gefilte fish every waking hour nourishes me with much needed protein. (Gefilte-fish jelly, like calf’s-foot jelly, was always valued as an invalid’s food.)
Deliveries now arrive daily from one shop or another: Murray’s on Broadway, Russ & Daughters, Sable’s, Zabar’s, Barney Greengrass, the 2nd Ave Deli—they all make their own gefilte fish, and I like it all (though none compares to my mother’s or Helen’s).
While I have conscious memories of gefilte fish from about the age of four, I suspect that I acquired my taste for it even earlier, for, with its abundant, nutritious jelly, it was often given to infants in Orthodox households as they moved from baby foods to solid food. Gefilte fish will usher me out of this life, as it ushered me into it, eighty-two years ago.
Hmm… It doesn’t look bad. But I’ll stick with a Friday fish fry, thank you.
+1! Though lox is sublime.
I eat pickled herrings; how much worse can it be?
Completely different taste than pickled herring ( which I also like).
It is ground fish mixed with egg, onion, bread of some sort, chopped carrots and then boiled in fish stock. Sometimes it is made with sugar and/or pepper.
That sounds tasty to me!
I go with the below suggestions. There is pre-prepared stuff on the market that will knock your head back *this* far. On might as well tuck in to a helping of Surströmming.
Yuck. Sounds worse than I imagine garum was.
It’s not, really. I’ve personally tried lutefisk, for example, and comparing gefilte fish to that, much less surstromming, is like comparing white chocolate to chlorine bleach. If anything, gefilte fish is bland.
The last sentence of that wiki article is comedy gold, BTW.
Yes; the basic idea is the same as meatloaf, but with fish rather than beef. And, of course, a suitably altered set of seasonings.
b&
I would have said more like a dumpling (a fishy one at that), but I’ve never had the stuff before so couldn’t really say.
Based on the comments I’m not going to bother trying any unless the opportunity for some home-made comes up.
Matza balls are more like dumplings.
And store-bought gefilte fish isn’t bad. It’s good enough, when there isn’t any home-made. You might like the bake-at-home loaf version best, though. Find it in the kosher frozen foods section.
Not sure I’d agree with the store-bought suggestion, but matzah balls are definitely dumplings, traditionally served floating in chicken soup.
…and this, of course, would be the variety of “dumpling” thats essentially a boiled biscuit…and, by, “biscuit,” I mean the American Southern kind — a non-yeast quickbread. In other contexts, especially Asian, a “dumpling” is going to be in the ravioli family — which matzah balls emphatically are not.
b&
For dumplings I’ll take Szechuan pot stickers. For Jewish food give me Pastrami or Montreal Smoked Meat on rye. Y’all can keep the gefilte fish and matzoh balls. Lox, too, though I do love smoked trout.
But where so you stand on Manischewitz wine?
Facing the other way. Manischewitz is gross.
I like its grapey taste. It’s like Welches grape juice for adults.
Best description ever!
Not my favorite wine, but that is as perfect a description as I’ve ever come across.
I’m an affront to all wine connoisseurs because of my love of its grapey goodness! 🙂
While I wouldn’t be surprised if PZ really is misrepresenting Sam, I fear that he tends to take simple disagreement as misrepresentation.
I listend to it.
It’s mostly the same, save he’s digging the hole even deeper this time.
He has a very poor grasp of set theory. If you exclude people whom you’re sure couldn’t possibly be terrorists, those who’re left are the ones whom you’re sure could possibly be terrorists. Which is profiling.
He insists that nobody with children would sacrifice their children for their gods, despite all sorts of sensational news headlines to the contrary.
He thinks the only way somebody could look like Betty White is by being Betty White. He is apparently completely ignorant of the art of disguise. Old women are especially easy to impersonate.
…and the deeper hole…he now wants well-known celebrities to automatically get a free pass. Well, how are the screeners to know that the person in question is a celebrity? I didn’t recognize one of the names he tossed out, and I’m sure I wouldn’t recognize the face. When Mr. Important Person gets waved through at LAX but gets patted down at GEG because the security person there doesn’t recognize him, there’ll be hell to pay…so we now need an official list of Very Important People who get a get-out-of-security-free card. But how do we put people on the list? Bacon number? Clearly, we need a database of known-good people…which we already have, if you’re willing to shell out the bucks to bribe your way onto it. Like no terrorist will think of that. And if we stick with the “you’ll know ’em when you see ’em,” has he any clue how many celebrity impersonators there are out there? How easy it would be for one to get a legal name change — or just a fake ID, for that matter?
Sam’s way out of this is to admit that he’s not a security expert, despite his other credentials, and he’s fallen victim to Dunning-Kruger, and shut the hell up.
Cheers,
b&
He didn’t say people with chiller wouldn’t sacrifice them, he said it takes a very particular kind of person to do that.
Yes…and that particular kind of person is the same kind that’d hijack a plane in the first place. Giving families with children a free pass through security just means that the terrorists bring their kids along for the ride. Or their nieces and nephews, with or without the kids’s parents having any clue what’s going on.
b&
But he never said that. He was simply describing the mindset of a terrorist. He wasn’t at suggesting they get a free pass. It wasn’t even remotely connected.
I’d have to listen to it yet again, and I don’t have time to do so. But I could swear that he included families traveling with children in his litany of people who obviously didn’t need to go through security.
Even if he didn’t…it should give you an idea of how poorly he’s communicating on this subject. He most emphatically indicated that all sorts of celebrities shouldn’t go through because they couldn’t possibly pose a threat, and he talked about families with children in the same breath. If he wanted to make the point that families with children should get extra pat-downs, he failed to do so.
b&
Or using your logic you could argue that you didn’t listen carefully enough. He talks about all sorts of things in that podcast.
My iPad has a sense of humour, substituting “chiller” for “children”.
Maybe this comment belongs on another page …
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More like the inverse: wine for kids. More than one person’s first experience with intoxication involves Manischewitz….
b&
I would prefer gyoza over pot stickers.
Aren’t gyoza and pot stickers pretty much the same?
I think “gyoza” is a more generic term for dumpling. Start with the same dumpling. Pan-fry it and steam it and you’ve got gyoza in the form of pot stickers. Boil it and drop it in a bowl of soup and you’ve got gyoza in the form of dumplings.
…and I’m sure there’re language-specific qualifiers I’m entirely ignorant of….
b&
If you like gyoza and the like, you should like kreplach. Very similar concept.
b&
And Austrian Leberknödeln…
…Italian ravioli…Polish pierogi….
b&
My dough-wrapped, soup-swimming thingy’s better than your dough-wrapped, soup-swimming thingy.
My dough-wrapped, soup-swimming thingy’s better than yours.
My dough-wrapped, soup-swimming thingy’s better ’cause it’s filled with (wha-a-t-ever).
My dough-wrapped, soup-swimming thingy’s better than yours.
(Sung to the tune of “My d*g’s better than your d*g… ’cause he eats Kennel Ration…” — ancient commercial jingle.”
(Also, fill in whatever filling you want, to make yours the best thingy.)
My best thingy has nothing to do with dough filling. 😜
HA!!!!
I find that matzo balls in chicken soup seems to make one stuffed, especially after eating the Gefilte fish. It then becomes difficult to eat the brisket, chicken, kugel etc.
Oh, and my grandmother made the best luxion kugel! I’ll just dream of that, tonight…
…but, of course, one does what one must. Pass the latkes, please!
b&
Do you want sour cream or apple sauce with that?
Both. I alternate using them.
I used to make such crispy latkes, they could be picked up, cold from the fridge, and eaten like cookies, the next day. One of these days, I’m really going to have to get back to cooking.
I thought it wasn’t possible to last until the next day, at least not if I am around. 😊
Yeah, I know what you mean. Good point!
Both, no alternation; both atop the same pancake.
b&
Yeah, I’ve seen that, and tried it, and decided sour cream, alone, is my favorite. Apple sauce, alone, is my healthy go-to. The combo just didn’t do it for me.
To each her own….
b&
That does lead to interesting thoughts of stuffed matza balls to blend with the concept of Asian dumplings and ravioli.
If we stuff them with fish, they’d be matza ball gefilte fish! Swimming in soup, no less. I think kids could go for that.
I think you’re onto something. Definitely room for some very creative fusion…both cultures are big on soups, dumplings, and fish. Of course, the one cuisine uses a lot more pork and shellfish than the other….
b&
We had a restaurant here in Toronto called Ginzburg and Wong.
That sounds like fun food!
We can substitute.
And, while we’re on the topic of Jewish food, how about chopped liver?
(As I write this, I am actually eating gefilte fish for dinner! I was so hunger, and it was so already-made!)
I prefer my chopped liver made with schmaltz, but at my age, it’s not healthy.
Can we just counter that by adding enough onions?
First, all things in moderation. Second…it’s the sugar you need to watch out for, not the fat….
b&
Yes, please!
b&
Mmmmmmm…. Copied and pasted recipe into email to self, to avoid losing it. Thanks, Ben!
Where in the world did this Dec 2012 post suddenly appear from?? And thanks, AWFULLY, Ben for the Jose Felicianoed- Hippo Birdie Two Ewes which has now infected my poor brain🙀
Where’d it come from? I think it started with a jump to the right. Or maybe a step to the left? Never could keep that straight….
b&
“… and bring your hips in ti-i-ight”..
“Let’s do the Time Warp, again!”
My pleasure! It’s the real deal, too, as far as I’m concerned. Of course, that might have something to do with it being the one I grew up with….
b&
It read like my step-mom’s, and hers was the real deal, too. Wish I could still get a copy of that one, but yours will do just fine.
…and, of course, you can always use it as a starting point and tweak as desired. Choice of liqueur for deglazing the pan, for example. Maybe some truffles? Lots of possibilities….
b&
yum!
You all have made me hungry. Perhaps I’ll have a corned beef & pastrami gut-buster from Moe’s Deli for lunch today.
Pot stickers and gyoza? Yum.
Matzah balls in chicken soup? Yum.
I think I’ll trust BobTerrace on the wine.
He is absolutely correct. Homemade gefilte fish is the only one worth eating.
Nothing could compare to what my grandmother (Lizzie Greenbaum) or my mother-in-law (Henny Adler) used to make.
In my experience, unless gefilte fish is made by someone’s Grandma, it’s probably not worth it. And, jbillie is right, lox is delicious, I love bagels and lox.
Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how wonderful I find Sack’s honest and dignified writing as he nears the end of his life.
Yes, and he’s already passed of course (30-Aug).
Oh, I hadn’t heard.
only edible with large amounts of horse radish. I like to put a Korean spin on it, I eat it with kimchi.
I’m very fond of it. Yes, horseradish helps, but it is actually a delicious dish and almost anybody we’ve introduced to it is surprised at how much they like it.
Nice to hear that the late Mr. Sacks and I have even more in common.
Count me in the majority. Dad’s gefilte fish is a delicacy. The canned commercial stuff isn’t worth eating.
But should this be surprising? Consider how the same applies to so many other foods. Most of us can cite examples of to-die-for homemade lasagne, for example, but would similarly turn our noses up at the shit in the TV dinner aisle.
b&
Lutefisk, anyone?
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Absolutely not!
My Norwegian cousins replied, when I asked if they ate lutefisk, [after snorting with laughter] “We haven’t eaten that in many generations. That was survival food.”
You may be interested in my “rare” post, above.
The food could be one reason for the emergence of atheistic/secular/humanistic Jewish groups. There’s a New York Kosher Deli on 38th that’s open every day. Great chopped liver.
I loved the way Helen named it “filter fish” and how Sachs continued using the name in loving honor of her.
It is a great essay and in the same issue is a great and touching remembrance by Atul Gawande.
I went and googled gefilte fish recipes to see what it was all about. There is broad disagreement about how to make this. Is the fish poached first or used raw? Are the onions and veg fried first or not? Is it stuffed into cabbage leave? Is it poached or baked in loaves in the oven? One recipe put a cup of sugar in the mix which cannot be traditional surely? #confused
Gonna have to ask my Jewish friends if they have a recipe, but I’m expecting to be told that they hate it. #nogefiltefishforyou
Actually, gefilte fish is an Ashkenazi (northern European) Jewish dish that comes in two basic varieties: sweet and savory. There is an imaginary line dividing northern Europe in two, with the sweet on one side and the savory on the other.
Also, “gefilte” comes from the German for “stuffed.” In the same way restaurants might serve stuffed crabs, with the meat extracted, mixed, and stuffed back in before baking and serving, gefilte fish started out as stuffed fish.
When the process to mass produce gefilte fish was created, the emptied out fish body, complete with head and tail, was left behind, and only the stuffing was used.
I think the sort sold in individual or bite-size portions in jars is sweet, and the sort sold frozen, in logs or loaves that have to be baked and then sliced into individual servings, is less sweet and perhaps even a bit savory.
At least, that is how they taste to me.
So, one who doesn’t appreciate the jar version might prefer the frozen loaf version.
A very sweet piece of writing. Another gift from Oliver Sacks.
Gefilte fish originated in the Lithuanian Jewish (or Litvak) community. The ingredients, the pike for example, are typical of Lithuania, which has many lakes. Carp, cod and other large fish are also used for this dish. The Lithuanian cookbook titled Zhydu Valgiai (Jewish Dishes) published by YAD publishers, Vilnius 1992 contains a recipe for gefilte fish as well as recipes for many other peculiar fish dishes.
I have no way to know whether you’re correct or not, but I have found that many foods that supposedly have one origin are in fact either lost in time as to where they came from or had independent origins. (Lots of food nationalisms – see Wikipedia on things like hummus, etc.)
Jews historically are far more literate than their peers, writing stories and histories and publishing papers, etc. It is far more likely that one will find historical evidence for bits of Jewish history, i.e., gefilte fish origins, than other, similar things. That is, except in cases where Nazis and other violent antisemites destroyed the records, as ISIS/Daesh destroyed Palmyra. Illiterate antisemites, jealous of Jewish learning, would have recognized the value Jews placed on books and make a point of targeting them, in the course of pillaging, raping, and murdering. The name for this general behavior is “pogrom”, emphasis on the second syllable, and only the one “r” — i.e, it wasn’t a “program.” It was a “poGROM.”
That destruction of records has made it impossible to know how many Jews were murdered over the centuries between Constantine’s institutionalization of antisemitism and Hitler’s dramatic, no-nonsense effort at annihilation.
My wife calls it filtered fish, with the implication that the flavour is what has been filtered out.
I’m sure it can be done well, but the examples I’ve tasted bear her out.
doesn’t look terribly tempting…
There was a great scene in an episode of “Malcolm in the Middle” where they were at a Jewish relatives’ house for dinner. The old Grandpa turned his head for a minute (maybe to pick up a napkin), and someone spooned a portion of gefilte fish onto his plate. He straightened back up, looked at his plate, did a double take, and said, “Did I do that?”
I’m currently on some kind of journey that feels a lot like appreciating the Sabbath as a nonbeliever.
I’m in the process of converting to Judaism, and it has nothing to do with theology or belief.
In my early twenties, I went to divinity school. After serving as an interfaith chaplain at Columbia Presbyterian, I rejected faith communities as avenues for ethics and began to consider what I could do to prevent pain and suffering. I transitioned into science in my 30’s and am now completing a doctorate in public health genetics and working as a cancer researcher in Seattle. Prior to this, I was at the National Cancer Institute. And the group I was with (Clinical Genetics) was almost entirely Jewish. When I left them and went into diaspera to get my PhD, I sobbed.
There’s something about the connectedness of Jewish culture that resonates with me. There are intellectual and emotional nuances that I don’t find elsewhere. So, yes, here’s to filter fish and the Sabbath and rejecting belief. I’m right there.
I think Dr. Sachs found the balance, between throwing out the god and keeping the Sabbath. I do the same.
I don’t know when humans started to realize that cleanliness was worthy, but Judaism installed bathing, clothes washing, and hand washing in the Torah. Forget the god part, okay. Forget the bathing, hand-washing and clothes washing? That’s going too far.
The Sabbath is a time of breaking away from the work week, fulfilling oneself with the company of others, accompanied — of course! — with plenty of good food, some wine, maybe a little “schnaps”, and the intellectual challenge of turning Torah stories into parables (if that’s the right word) that teach good ethics despite the fact that there is no god. Anything for a good illustration, some interesting twist of logic, and a happily ever after to hope for, when everyone is nice and caring and respectful to everyone else.
We can still dream, can’t we?
All I know about gefilte fish is that it’s cheaper to buy at Whole Foods than at Ralphs. Go figure. Now if I could just find a decent corn rye bread in L.A.
I’m looking at the picture, and I’m still not sure which bit is the gefilte fish.
I mean, the thing on the top is just a bit of carrot, isn’t it?
The gefilte fish is the gelatinous thing that looks like it peeled off of Jabba the Hut.
Carrots have often been used in Jewish cooking to add sweetness to a dish, just as celery is for saltiness. That is a slice of carrot on top the gefilte fish.
Imagine stuffed fish: The actual fish has been gutted, its meat and bones removed, the meat mixed with traditional sorts of extenders (breading as filler, eggs to hold it all together) and some flavorful things.
Now, form it as you would any other stuffing, and put it back into the fish. Bake it. The result is a serving that looks like a fish, complete with head and tail, but is easily opened and eaten, without any fuss, mess, or bones.
That’s the historical version. Take away the outer fish, and one can then boil or bake the stuffing of fish meat, to serve as you see on the dish. That particular example is a boiled one.
“Take away the outer fish, and one can then boil or bake the stuffing of fish meat, to serve as you see on the dish.”
So, the modern example is Neil Shubin’s favorite dish?
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His “inner fish”, so to speak?
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+1 🐊🐟
Gefiltefest!
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Awesome!
I grew up in a part of the Montreal area where eastern European stuff like this was readily available (along with a lot of Italian, for example) I still enjoy Montreal-style bagels, for example, when I can get them. But I’ve never had gefilte …
There’s a Chinese dish similar to this, in that it’s minced fish meat. The fishballs or fried fish patties are quite delicious, so it depends on the seasoning.
I’ve had “fish cakes” that seem to be similar in Vietnamese, Thai and (now?) Japanese cooking.
Actually, come to think of it they were similar to fiskboll, I think that’s the name – from Norway. (Contents if not shape.)