Ludvipol: A Modern Shtetl
A Happy Childhood
farmers were arrested, it was more often for the crime of growing tobacco than for killing or injuring someone. I loved kielbasa, a popular food in Poland, though poor people could not afford it. Today kielbasa is made of turkey and, although I am careful with food, once in a blue moon I buy some, strictly for memories of the old days. When I later suffered from hunger during the war, I dreamed that one day, when I would be rich, I would hang hundreds of salamis the entire length of my house. Even today, when I disappear from my wife’s side in the supermar- ket, she knows she can find me standing by the glass case display - ing bologna, salami, and sausages. I stare longingly at them. Here they are by the hundreds, even kosher ones, right in plain view. It makes my mouth water. Most people baked their own bread at home and each house had a baking oven. My family, though, had bread delivered daily. A woman came to our home with a big basket, so big that it took both her arms to hold it. She bought breads and rolls of all types from one of the town’s two bakeries and delivered them to her regular customers. She charged seven pennies for delivering an item she bought at the bakery for five pennies; she earned her living by pro - viding this delivery service. A woman who worked for us bought live chickens at the market, directly from the farmers, and brought them to the shochet (Jewish ritual slaughterer) for slaughter. The chickens were brought home, plucked, singed, salted, and soaked to kasher them. Only then were they ready for cooking. I remember many times seeing the woman separate the feathers on the bird and then blow on them, showing my mother that the chicken in question had a good layer of fat under its skin. Polish chickens were “free-range” birds, so few of them had fat on their bodies. Fat was considered a delicacy, unlike in the United States today where we remove all the fat for health reasons. In those days, when chicken fat was not commonly avail- able, it was fashionable to leave it when it floated to the top of the pot of soup, and not to skim it off. If you were really lucky, there shochet
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