Sentimental Candy Dishes
Visiting my grandparents’ house growing up, there was always a cut glass candy dish filled with treats resting on their coffee table. Perched together on the nearby sofa, my grandmother would frequently share stories of her childhood.
When I revisit these memories, they are vibrantly colored by the pleasure and longing she conveyed in her voice. I think about her stories often, and turn them over in my mind, savoring, as I would one of her beautifully displayed candies. These memories are windows into a world that once existed, doesn’t any longer, but is still real.
Malka’s Cherished Oranges
In 1930's Stepan, Ukraine, oranges were a rare and exotic treat from faraway lands. My great grandfather Moishe, through connections and trades, managed to bring home some jewel-orange citrus for his family. My grandmother, Malka Grossman, thought they were too gorgeous and precious to eat immediately. Surely, they had to be hidden and saved for judicious, focused enjoyment on special occasions.
Sadly, they both dried and fermented under her bed and had to be thrown out.
Pesach’s Vegetable Garden
My great-great-grandfather Pesach Grossman’s garden in Stepan, Ukraine was a feast for the eyes. Rows of ‘salata,’ pumpkin plants, tomatoes, radishes, corn, and towering sunflowers dispersed among the vegetables. The children were allowed to collect their own tomatoes, which were juicy and sweet. There was no running water in Stepan, nor was there a well close by; someone must have brought water for the garden on a ‘korómislo,’ a flexible pole worn on the shoulders, with a bucket on each end.
Moishe’s Orchard
My great grandfather Moishe proudly maintained an orchard of apple, pear and plum trees next to his father Pesach’s well-tended vegetable garden in Stepan, Ukraine. Moishe was the only person in his community who grafted apple branches onto pear trees and vice versa. Pesach frowned on this practice because, according to Jewish law, it was “not to be done.”
