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Farfel and Katofal Soup |
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"A poor people's meal-It kept people alive, that soup." Bubbe Manya (which translates as Grandmother Miriam) has been making farfel and katofal soup fortnightly for at least sixty five years, and eating it for longer than that. It is an economical meal, yet so delicious and easy to make that it continues to be popular even when alternatives are affordable. Manya thinks she started making her own farfel and katofal after she arrived in Australia, in 1927. Keenly aware of anti-Semitism in her native Poland, Manya had very much wanted to leave Warsaw and join her older brother Ben in Melbourne. Because she was 17 years old at the time, her father wanted her to marry and remain in Poland. However, she finally persuaded him to let her go. Accompanied by her fifteen-year-old brother Moishe, she set out from Warsaw to journey to Melbourne. Her father, a wholesale merchant, gave Manya and Moishe some machines to separate milk and cream ("milk separators") for them to take and sell in order to help pay their expenses. Manya's route took her from Warsaw to Paris by train, and from there to Rumania, where she and her brother boarded "a cheap boat" called the Ville de Strasbourg. They passed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, travelling south through the Indian Ocean until finally arriving in Perth. In Perth, the Customs officials required each passenger to present the equivalent of $40 in order to enter Australia, and would not accept milk separators as a substitute. Manya and Moishe were arrested and locked in a room. The officials threatened to send them back to Poland. Manya responded that she would "jump into the sea" rather than return. At this point, the Jewish Welfare Committee intervened. Customs officials finally contacted her older brother Ben in Melbourne, and verified that he would be responsible for his younger siblings. When Manya and Moishe docked in Melbourne, members of Jewish Welfare met them, and put them in contact with Ben. Meanwhile, in Warsaw, Manya's parents missed their three children very much. Two years later, the rest of the family, including the four other children, migrated to Australia. |
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3 medium potatoes 1 medium onion ½ carrot 1 cup farfel 1 tablespoon oil ¼ chicken stock power (or substitute stock cubes) 6 cups water salt & pepper to taste |
Put the water in a big saucepan and bring to boil. Peel and dice the potatoes (a fairly large dice, say 1 ½ square centimetres). Peel and dice the carrot into smaller pieces. When the water boils, add the potato and carrot, and simmer until the potato is just tender. Add the chicken stock powder and farfel, bring to a boil again, and simmer for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan until sizzling. Add the onion, diced small, and cook until brown. Add a bit of the soup to the onion and oil in order to cool it down. Then add this mixture to the main pot of soup. After ten minutes of simmering, the farfel should be still be chewy. Remove from flame and let stand for fifteen minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, and the soup is ready to eat. Note: Farfel is something like a pasta, made from a dough of flour, eggs and water., which is oven roasted and then broken up. While Manya originally made her own farfel, it is now available in a packet, in the Kosher section of a large supermarket. Visually, farfel resembles crumbled dry biscuits., but once cooked, has a unique and pleasing texture. |
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