From my lips: Schmaltz, the pornography connection

by Rabbi Marc Wilson

Schmaltz, that mystical alchemy of onion-infused chicken fat, is Jewish pornography.  It corrupts the brain and heart.  We hide it at the back of the shelf, where only the adult hand may reach.  It tempts us, and if we capitulate even a little, it punctuates our bland existence with randy diversion into illicit pleasure – the fantasy of a voluptuous mistress.  Jews who eschew schmaltz do it with the credibility of the quasi-prudes who claim to read Playboy “only for the articles.”

Purists will tell you that schmaltz is, indeed, chicken fat.  But, rendering schmaltz invariably involves adding chopped onions that seethe until their brown-black shards join cracklings at the bottom of the virginal pool.  This residue that is so highly prized attains the status of “gribenes,” Church Slavonic for “scraps.”

Gribenes reach their destiny by fortifying a blob of mashed potatoes or by adding bawdiness to a too-tame bowl of chopped liver.  Or, one may tempt fate by eating them au naturel, like popcorn.  At 13, my acne and 200-pound heft attested to the bowls of gribenes that my mom dotingly placed beside me while I watched American Bandstand.  The wages of mother-love are still manifest in the two coronary stents and pacemaker that befriended me by the age of 50.

Ah, the omnipotence of schmaltz:  Fry an egg or hamburgers in it.  Wondrous.  Slather it on matzo, sprinkle some salt and broil for a moment.  Nirvana.  Schmaltz perfectly melds the elements of an egg-and-onion salad unlike any nanny for any upper middle class child.

Indeed, herein lays an immigrant’s tale of acculturation:  Mayonnaise was foreign to first-generation Jewish-American homemakers.  Moreover, they refused to believe that its creamy texture could be achieved without the addition of some dairy product, making it unfit for meat-based meals.  Thus, schmaltz was pressed into service for all sorts of culinary processes, until homemakers either stopped being so meticulous in kashrut or started believing the rabbinate’s reassurance that mayo was fit for Jewish consumption.

The lowest circle of Dante’s Inferno holds a repertoire of stories about the toxic relationship between gentiles and schmaltz.  Classical among them is a cautionary tale I witnessed late one night while downing a Brobdingnagian hunk of strudel at the Carnegie Deli.  Next to me sat a classically Upper West Side couple and their guest, a businessman from Texas.

Allowing him no choice, they ordered chopped liver “just for the experience.”  Then they requested a pot of schmaltz “to complete the effect.”  They heaped spoonfuls of the viscous stuff onto the already shimmery chopped liver, handed Tex a piece of rye and insisted he dig in.  He loved it.  I betcha he loved it again and again all night long until he hated it.  If he slept at all, I guarantee that he arose with a hangover that only a Bromo could fix.  I betcha that he hightailed his way back to Big D aware that a Jewish chicken is far more dangerous than a long-horned steer.

Everything in moderation, I say to myself.  It’s been years since I have rendered a pot of schmaltz, or enriched my chopped liver with it, or basted my Thanksgiving turkey in it (try dry sake instead.), or noshed on gribenes a-nekkid.  But, I still crave it as one craves the love of his youth and the temptations that tried his innocence.  I dare not, I say to myself.  I ought not.  And, God give me the strength, I will not.

Capitulation, though, is an ever-present urge.  When that day comes, do not believe what they say about succumbing to aortic stenosis.  You will know the truth:  Schmaltz was my lethal paramour.  You may be certain that just as my stents burst, I toasted my Jewish heritage, went well-greased into that dark night, and died one happy, corpulent man.  Inscribe this on my tombstone:  He liked his mayo, but gave his life for schmaltz.

 

Editor’s note: Marc Howard Wilson is a rabbi and writer in Greenville, SC. He can be reached at marcwilson1216@aol.com.