Growing up, we called three different places home, and each one is stamped in my memory with the distinct flavors and aromas of the breakfasts we enjoyed there. My mother was a really good cook but for breakfast we basically ate the same things: hot cereal, cold cereal, or eggs. Eggs were soft-boiled, scrambled, or poached. My father, Bernie Blieden, always said that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. The older I get, the more I know that he was right. However, I did not always enjoy eating breakfast.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
(I am second from right. The other girls were neighborhood friends.)
We lived in my Grandma Minnie’s apartment until I was 5 years old. I actually shared a bedroom with Grandma Minnie since it was a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment. My parents had one bedroom and Grandma Minnie and I shared the other one.
I remember my Grandma Minnie making me soft-boiled eggs and tearing up a piece of seeded rye bread into little bite-sized pieces and mixing them into the egg. Yum! Just thinking about that makes me want one. My sister, Avra, even gave us 3 egg-cups as a wedding present (she was only 13 years old when we got married) because she knew how much I liked my eggs that way.
Of course, whenever we visited our other grandmother, Grandma Gussie Blieden, in Flatbush, Brooklyn, she always made me a “Yashina” which was a soupy, salty scrambled egg. I always looked forward to that and requested that she make it for me.
“Eat up! It’s good for you,” Grandma Gussie would say in her heavy Yiddish accent, her eyes twinkling with pride that I enjoyed what she made. I can still picture her wooden blue kitchen table and the aprons she would wear over her house dresses. Yashina was the Russian word for scrambled egg but it took me many, many years to learn that. I always wondered what yashina meant even though I always requested it.
Ally Pond Park Garden Apartments, Queens, Long Island, New York
(My mother holding Avra, me and Ira)
Some of my fondest breakfast memories transport me back to our apartment in Ally Pond Park Garden Apartments. Picture a lively two-bedroom corner apartment on the second floor, which we called home from the time I was 5 until I was about 10 years old. At first, it was just me and my brother, Ira, but eventually, our sister, Avra, came along. It was also a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. Ira and I shared a bedroom until Avra came along. Then Avra and I shared and Ira slept in our parent’s room on a chaise lounge.
“You’ve gotta get up, you’ve gotta get up, you’ve gotta get up in the morning’. My father always burst into our room playing a pretend bugle to that tune as he tore open the blinds to let the sunlight in. I guess he heard song that a lot during his Army days. Being a sleepy head, I always begged him to leave the shades closed but he wanted us up and out of bed.
We were always in a hurry to eat so we could go outside to play with our friends on the weekends, and we were hurried along to get ready for school on school days.
My favorite hot cereals were Cream of Wheat and Wheatena. We were not allowed to use sugar and instead of water, my mother always cooked the hot cereals with milk. When she placed the steaming bowl of cereal in front of me, she always added a dollop of butter which I proceeded to mix into the cereal. We never missed adding sugar since we never had it to begin with. I especially liked the salty taste of Wheatena. She would always make me a double portion. I guess I had a big appetite and ate a lot back then!
The cold cereals that we were allowed to eat were Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, and occasionally as a treat, Frosted Flakes. If we had cold cereal we always cut up strawberries and bananas to put in the cereal. “Snap, Crackle, Pop!” the Rice Krispies would sing to me every morning.
And Tony the Tiger? He was always there with a roaring “Grrrre-a-t!” I loved the “snap, crackle, and pop” sound of the Rice Krispies as you crunched them in your mouth. Advertisers turned those three words into three characters that were constantly on commercials. They sang a catchy tune! Kids, at that time, also wanted stuffed tiger tales that represented Tony the Tiger from the Frosted Flakes commercials. Tony aways said that Frosted Flakes were “Grrrre-a-t!” Watch a commercial from 1959 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0zlDv3jcyQ By the way, we only had black and white TVs and only 3 channels to choose from in those days! As I mentioned before, sugar was a no-go in our house—my mom was on a health kick long before it was trendy. Back then, I wasn’t thrilled about it, but now I must admit, she knew what she was doing!
On the weekends, for a special treat my father made fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juice. Sometimes we would have one or the other and sometimes we would mix the orange and grapefruit juice together. And sometimes, he would let us help do the squeezing. “Please let me do it” I would beg. It always looked like so much fun to do the squeezing, but it was just as much fun to watch the juice drip, drip slowly into a glass. It took a lot of oranges to make enough juice for the family.
Another special treat was matzoh meal pancakes. We especially ate this during Passover since we were strictly kosher and kept the food traditions. Back then, you could not buy many foods that were kosher for Passover so our choices were limited. However, matzoh meal pancakes became a family tradition either for breakfast or lunch and we begged for them all year long. They were little, flat pancakes about the size of an adult fist. They were light and crispy around the edges. We ate them with cottage cheese.
Once my Cousin Harvey Rich stayed with us for a few days. He was 4 years older than me, and I always considered him to be my big brother.
“Who’s ready for a pancake competition?”, I dared him knowing my mother would make matzoh meal pancakes that morning. “I bet I can eat more than you”.
That morning, we kept my mother busy. She made batch after batch. We ate so many little pancakes we ran out of cottage cheese. My mother paused the pancake-making, sent Harvey and me to the grocery store to buy more cottage cheese, and as soon as we got back home from our walk, she started cooking the pancakes again. I don’t remember who won that day, but another time I won by eating 30 little pancakes!
Teaneck, New Jersey
We moved to Teaneck when I was 10 years old. We now had a four bedroom house with the luxury of two bathrooms! Our Aunt Lois and Uncle Arthur, my father’s brother, lived a few blocks away and our Great-Uncle Max moved in with us.
I begged my mother for either a new baby doll or a new baby sibling. I think I got both! Our youngest sister, Mavra, was born when I was twelve. Sadly, when Mavra was only two, our mother died from colon cancer. I was only 14 and my other siblings were 10 and 7.
That was when I stopped eating breakfast – why? Among other things, I couldn’t stand the smells. I usually sat at the kitchen table in the middle between my brother, Ira, and sister, Avra. My brother, Ira, liked to eat scrambled eggs with mustard while my sister, Avra, liked to eat scrambled eggs with ketchup. I could not stand the smells of ketchup and mustard so early in the morning so I wouldn’t eat. That was a mistake since not only did it upset my father, but I now know that breakfast gives you energy for the whole day. No wonder I was often tired! Pop would get very frustrated with all of us since he wanted us to start the day off with a good breakfast. He was doing his best raising four kids on his own. We did have housekeepers, but I can’t remember what they cooked for breakfast. I only remember that none of them lasted too long.
Of course, thinking about breakfast in Teaneck, I can picture my father getting up early to go to the deli and the bakery for fresh-baked bread, bagels, lox, and herring. He also stopped at the candy store for the morning newspaper and, unfortunately, for his Chesterfield cigarettes, which later on would contribute to his heart attacks. Everyone at the Royal Delicatessen knew Pop. And just thinking about standing in that store and looking into the display cases makes me drool. Belly lox was less expensive than Nova Scotia, so Pop always got some belly lox which was sliced fresh right in front of him. Belly lox is a lot more salty and I could only eat teeny, tiny bits of it. I loved Smaltz herring, though. I loved to chew on the bones. If we were really lucky, and if the Royal had some on hand, baked herring was a special treat. I was never crazy about the herring in sour cream but I do like that now. Next stop would be Butterflake Bakery. You never saw such a huge selection of baked goods. I can still taste and smell the fresh-baked rye bread still warm from the oven. The deli and the bakery were weekend traditions not to be missed. Pop did not have to yell at us to eat when the lox, herring, and fresh bagels and breads were in the house.
One morning when I was home from college on vacation, I thought I heard my younger siblings leave for school. “Good,” I thought. “Everyone ate their breakfast, and Pop did not have to yell this morning.” Just then I heard him yelling. “Who’s he yelling at?” I wondered, so I tip-toed downstairs to see. It was the Mavra’s pet bird! The poor bird was not eating its breakfast and was getting Poppy’s usual lecture about the value of a good breakfast!
After all these years, Pop’s morning breakfast sermons finally sank in. I wish he could see me now, knowing his persistent advice didn’t fall on deaf ears after all.
A Matzoh Meal Pancake Recipe
Ingredients
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups matzoh meal (if you make it during Passover, make sure you use the Kosher for Passover version)
2 1/2 cups water (you may end up using either a little more water or a little less)
Olive Oil or oil spray
Instructions
Beat the eggs first.
Add the matzoh meal.
Slowly add the water, reserve the last 1/2 cup and add as needed.
Mix everything together.
You want this to be more of a pancake consistency.
Let the batter rest around 3 minutes and then heat up a stainless steel pan with some oil or oil spray.
Be generous with your oil, it will be like making latkes rather than pancakes (the more oil the better).
Take a spoonful or two and make it like a pancake. Let it brown and flip it over and brown the other side.
Serve!
from https://www.themamamaven.com/crispy-matzoh-meal-pancakes-recipe/
What a great blog Tara! You really captured a lot of our early years, xo
Cousin Harvey’s daughter, Jessica, sent me this note:
This is such a good set of stories, Tara!
( I can totally see my dad as a formidable competitor to you in a pancake eating contest, even as an adult. 😉 )
Love, Jess
My brother, Ira, commented to me that oatmeal was and still is his favorite. I had to think about that since I do not remember eating oatmeal as a child. Then I realized that our mother would ask each one of what we wanted and then make each one of us individualized meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Ira is now creating his own traditions. He added when his grandchildren come over to his house, he makes Grandpa’s Famous Oatmeal with 2% milk. Both Josephine and Andy eat an adult portion or more. Riley is getting over a dairy allergy (she can now eat cheese), so he do not make it when she is over and Harper is still a bit too young. Then we make “Uncle Ben’s Famous Scrambled Eggs”.
He still enjoys mustard, but needs to be careful as he cannot tolerate the vinegar in it. Once Covid started, he stopped eating mustard as he did not want to chance getting a sore throat.