How I discovered a long forgotten recipe of my Holocaust survivor great grandmother’s - The Jewish Chronicle

Growing up in an Ashkenazi Ukrainian-Russian household during the Soviet era I have internalised an inferiority complex: our food is so unremarkably simple.

Yet at the same time this food has always had such a special place in my life. Simple it may be but it is so deeply nourishing and comforting, that I would not want to change it for the world.

What’s more, this kind of food in our family is symbolised by the very special figure of my maternal great grandmother, Rosalia. She was born in 1912 to a family of assimilated Jews, who came from the Eastern part of Ukraine then ruled by the Russian Empire.

Grandma Rosalia's recipes were not obviously Jewish[Missing Credit]

As a Holocaust survivor who escaped Nazi persecution, she had to give up her Jewish identity papers and assumed a fake Slavic identity under the name, Elena. Living during the Soviet regime, our family, like many fellow Jewish households, did not openly embrace our origins, and the only place where this hidden part came to life was the kitchen.

And yet the humble Ashkenazi dishes that I grew up eating often came under different, Sovietised, names, and were never associated with any Jewish holidays. As an adult, living in the UK, I felt the urge to revive my great grandmother’s Ashkenazi legacy and identity. I started referring to her by her authentic name and wanted to do the same for her recipes.