(Jewish Group) This blintz recipe survived the Holocaust
Blintzes are one of Shavuot’s most popular dishes. Long associated with Ashkenazi cooking, the light and airy hug of the blintz pancake envelops pillowy fillings such as whipped farmer’s cheese or fruit compote. To call it a crepe is like calling chicken soup consommé. It sounds more fancy, but it lacks the tradition and warmth.
For Florence Tabrys, a Holocaust survivor, blintzes were a lifeline to her former life near Radom, Poland. I spoke to Florence when writing my first book “Recipes Remembered, a Celebration of Survival,” a compendium of stories and recipes I gathered from Holocaust survivors. I learned that as a child, Florence and her sister were separated from their parents in 1942 and sent to work in a munitions factory. They were eventually moved to Bergen-Belsen, where they remained until liberated by the Russian army. Florence never saw her parents again, but the memories of her childhood’s favorite foods sustained her throughout the years. Her sweet and creamy cheese blintzes became a family tradition; she would prepare them in large batches and freeze them so they would always be at the ready.
Topping blintzes is always a game of chance. For those growing up in Poland, most likely it was whatever was on hand from yesterday’s breakfast or Sabbath lunch. Hanna Wechsler, a survivor of Auschwitz, described her mother’s “naleshniki” as a cross between a thin crepe and a traditional blintz. She remembers her mother filling them with strawberry preserves, chopped nuts and a touch of sugar, then topping them with a strawberry sauce.
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