Spilling My Kishkas

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My mother’s mother was my favorite grandparent. It was close between her and my father’s father. He had a kind heart and would kiss his grandchildren on the forehead every time he saw one of us. She was a good cook and when I was in college sent me knishes in the mail. A knish on a plate that I could eat trumped a kiss on the keppalah that as I’d gotten older I couldn’t avoid.

Dormitory life 50 years ago at Dartmouth College would be unimaginable now except maybe at a military service academy. No girls in the rooms except at certain hours and never overnight and only a few things that required electricity like a radio or record player were allowed. No televisions, refrigerators or things you could cook with were permitted.

There was a guy in the room across the hall from me who had an immersion coil (strictly forbidden) and would boil water in his waste basket and make spaghetti. Yes, that was as gross as it sounds but I can top it. There was another guy on the hall who broke his foot playing rugby and was in a cast. He took showers with a plastic bag taped around it but when he wanted to clean the sole of his foot which was exposed, he stuck his foot in the toilet and flushed.

But enough about life at the all male college that inspired Animal House. My wonderful grandmother was worried I wasn’t getting enough to eat and certainly not the things a Jewish boy could have gotten at Columbia but didn’t stand a chance of finding in New Hampshire. So, one day a package arrived full of her homemade knishes. Fortunately, it was winter and I put them outside on my window ledge. They froze quickly and whenever I wanted a knish I’d break one off from the rest, put it on a plate and put the plate on top of the radiator.

This worked very well and the following year it surprisingly became unnecessary. No, Dartmouth didn’t change its policy about appliances in the dorms but a new sandwich shop opened in town and the Italian owners either got some questionable marketing advice or just took a gamble on the demand for knishes in Hanover.

Yes, in addition to subs at this Italian deli potato knishes were also available and so was kishka, which is also called stuffed derma— a Jewish dish traditionally made with matzo meal, schmaltz (animal fat), spices and vegetables encased in an animal (excluding pig) intestine casing. You may be disgusted but for me this was great!

I loved kishka and apparently might have been the only person on campus who did because after a couple months, although knishes were still being sold by the Italians, kishkas were not. My patronage hadn’t been enough to keep them on the menu so the stuffed derma was snuffed perma…nently. I was disheartened but undeterred and made a proposal to one of the owners.

Me: “Tony, how many kishkas would I have to buy for you to order them for me?”

Tony: “A box of 24.”

Me: “Deal!”

I was delighted and resumed using my window ledge and radiator as a kitchen.

Fifty years later I’m living in Maine and the only kishka to be found in the state is in my house if I decide to make it. I have attempted several times and admittedly, mine doesn’t measure up. I wrap it in aluminum foil and not an animals’s intestine casing but I don’t think that’s the problem. It’s just a work in progress as I try to resurrect a dish that’s lost its place in the Askenazi food chain.

We get to New York City every year and kishka can still be found there. The problem is that so can the best pastrami and trying to eat a kishka and a pastrami sandwich together is asking for trouble. But I have a solution. Come to Katz’s Delicatessen with me next time and we’ll split the order!