Hayim Chemerinsky

Chaim Chemerinsky was born in 1862 and died in 1917. In his final year of life, suffering from a terminal illness, he wrote an autobiographical memoir in Hebrew - "Ayarati Motele" (My Village Motole). He vividly describes the family, people, holidays, food and everyday life - with vivid description and a poignant longing. The book was published in Israel in 1951 and then re-published fifty years later with a forward by Prof David Assaf of Tel Aviv University. (Naomi Nobel - great, great, great, great niece.)

Haim Chemerinsky (Reb Mordecaile) My Home-Town Moteleh [https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/My%20Town%20Motole%20by%20Hayim%20...]

[http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/pleasure-hunting-one-potato-two-...] Pleasure Hunting One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four...

In the Russian town of Motol (now known as Motal and part of Belarus), they celebrated Hanukkah with a meal in three potato-heavy acts. Recreating it now has more than nostalgic value.

"The first bowl was full of potatoes, which this time had been boiled unpeeled, the second bowl contained pickled cucumbers in brine, the third pickled cabbages in brine - and this cabbage had not been cut and pounded like noodles but diced, a quarter of its stalk remaining on each piece - and we peeled off the cabbage leaves like onion skins and enjoyed their taste. Each had a cup of brine next to his plate from which we drank after each bite.

"To counteract the salty brine, we were now served an additional array of dishes: a bowlful of roasted potatoes whose fragrance traveled far, accompanied by a small bowl of curdled milk; a thin skin of cream on top, and below the skin beneath the cream, a single gleaming white mass."

In the third act, wonder of wonders, again potatoes. There was one dish in the world which Chemerinsky knew boiled on all six days of the week - it was like the Sambatyon (the mythical river resting only on Shabbat ), and its name was krupnik (soup ). But there's krupnik and there's krupnik, declared the gourmet passionately:

"So what was the difference between krupnik and krupnik? The 'chemical' elements were the same: water, barley groats and potatoes. In the case of ordinary krupnik, one groat chased the other in an endless expanse of water, with the mutilated potato pieces as eyewitnesses. Whereas the superior krupnik was boiled in a pot whose size corresponded to the number of diners, and three things were lavished on its preparation: fire, time and effort."