I’ve been collecting antique Judaica for more than half my lifetime. I have always sought out pieces that I like to look at, hold in my hands, and that tell me something about the area and period in time of the Jews that owned that object used it in their everyday lives. About twenty-five years ago, at a small auction house in France, a fascinating (to me) piece appeared for sale: a soup tureen made of hand painted and glazed ceramic, with the Hebrew word “Pesach” boldly stated on both the lid and container. This piece had some serious damage, as both handles were missing, part of the lid was gone, and there were two significant cracks on one side of the container that were repaired in the old-world way, with large metal brackets, that look like staples on steroids, holding the cracked pieces of earthenware together. Even with the heavy wear to this piece, I had some competition in the live bidding, but I eventually prevailed and was the piece’s new owner. Now my task was to research the age and origin of this Passover soup tureen, and see how many other examples were known.
I was surprised to learn that although quite a few small flat plates decorated in the same manner as this tureen – light blue floral motifs against a white background, with “Pesach” in black Hebrew lettering – were known in both private and public collections, no tureens were. Academics and museum curators determined that these dishes were produced in the Alsace region of France, during the very last part of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Now that I had an age and origin to my piece, it appeared to be rare, which as any collector will tell you, is something that gives us a personal feeling of satisfaction in recognizing a rarity and subsequently acquiring it. I thought little more of this new addition to my collection, aside from keeping in mind to be on the lookout for something to compliment this soup tureen, such as a matching bowl.
It took about twenty years, and I found not one, but two bowls that were of the same type in age, material and design as the soup tureen. The first bowl, bearing the word “Pesach” in the center, became available when the famous Dutch-Jewish documentary film maker Willy Lindwer decided to offer nearly his entire personal collection of Judaic antiques in various sales at the Israeli auction house Kedem, located in Jerusalem. The second bowl that I came to own appeared in yet another auction house in France, but instead of the word “Pesach” in the center, there was the Hebrew word “basar,” meat.
It had been a few years since I acquired that second bowl that perfectly paired my soup tureen for Pesach, and one day, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was browsing books in the ever-shrinking Judaism section at Barnes and Nobles, when I came across a new publication titled “The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List.” It featured sixty-five different writers, mostly Jews prominent in literary circles, and a few well-known gentiles in the American cooking scene. These articles addressed mostly classic Jewish foods such as gefilte fish, brisket, pastrami, chopped liver, and so on. I stood in the bookstore aisle, scanning the chapters for my favorite foods, hopping from one page to the other. For the entry of Matzah Balls, the journalist and author Joan Nathan, who has written twelve (!) books, including six on Jewish cooking and two on Israeli cooking, had this to say:
Matzo balls began as the German Knödel, a bready dumpling. Jewish cooks in the Middle Ages first adapted the dumplings to add to Sabbath soups, using broken matzo with some kind of fat like chicken or beef marrow, eggs, onions, ginger, and nutmeg. As Jews moved eastward from Germanic lands to Poland and the Pale of Settlement in Russia, they brought kneidlach (Yiddish for Knödel) with them. In Lithuania, for the Sabbath, kneidlach were filled with special bonuses like cinnamon or meat. Though kneidlach arrived in America under different guises, the Manischewitz Company started packaging ground matzo meal like breadcrumbs and marketed the dumplings in a box as “feather balls Alsatian style” in their Tempting Kosher Dishes cookbook of 1933.
Did I just see the words “Alsatian style?” Isn’t my Passover soup tureen from Alsace? And here, there is a statement referring to matzah balls bearing a culinary history from that region? I immediately purchased the book and spent the next week going through my entire library of Judaica auction catalogs, international Jewish museum publications and the Internet searching for any artifact relating to matzah balls or any soup for use on Shabbat and holidays. While I found charming vessels from late 19th century Ukraine made of dark green glazed ceramic that were labeled in Yiddish “Borscht for the holiday” or “Cholent Pot,” I could not find anything for matzah balls or soup.
The oldest and most impressive piece of cookware I came across was a two handled pot (pictured here), from the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt, Germany. It appeared to be made of a heavy bronze, with large cut out Hebrew letters affixed to it that read “Hirtz Popert’s spouse, daughter of Moses zur Leiter in the year 5340.” Because observant Jews do not light fires or cook on Shabbat, they prepare hot meals before Shabbat starts. In some European communities, families brought their Shabbat stew (i.e., cholent), to communal ovens to cook slowly overnight, and had their name stated on the pot so it would not be confused with cookware belonging to other families that were placed in the communal oven. This pot is in the collection of the Jewish Museum of New York, and has an incredibly early Hebrew date equivalent to the years 1579/1580.
I never knew how very, very old the background was of matzah balls, and where their origins lay; I had always assumed it was a late 19th century dish that came from Poland or Hungary and became popular in America due to the large Jewish immigrant waves beginning in the 1880s. I therefore never made the connection that my soup tureen for Passover could very well have been used specifically for matzah ball soup over two hundred years ago in a Jewish household celebrating Passover in France, and which would be, to the best of my knowledge, the oldest matzah ball soup tureen that is in existence! Is it tongue-in-cheek to make such a statement? Perhaps. But I’m waiting for someone to prove me otherwise!
Do you have an old kiddush cup, spice box, Chanukah menorah, or any old Jewish object that you want to know the age and value of? Send me photos of your piece and a brief note telling me about it, and I’ll answer you in a future Jewish Press column. No books or paintings please. My email is [email protected].
A zissen Pesach to all!
