Hungary For Some Soup?When was the last time you actually cooked a pot of soup from scratch? After leaving the oppressive environment of Budapest, Hungary, occupied by nazi’s rounding up the jews, my great grandparents took the ship to Ellis Island, where they would start a their new life in Brooklyn, New York. They came with nothing but their name and their experiences, as well as some clothes and an ambition to succeed. Life in the Co-ops was difficult for immigrants in search of work, regardless of not speaking the language. Although My Grandma lived in a small, cramped apartment with her two siblings and her yiddish speaking parents, their traditional soup was carried overseas. English was the second language that she had learned. My great grandmother Celia taught my grandma everything she new about cooking with this pot, but the soup was most important when the time came for Sabbath, a Jewish tradition that occurs every friday evening. My grandmother still remembers the sight of a freshly killed chicken, with its feathers flicked off and its blood drained from its throat. To some this may seem disturbing, but to her this was traditional and natural. Whether the task at hand was chicken noodle or matzoh ball, the pot was not only a reminder of her parents’ past, but a tool to use in the future. After Celia died, my grandmother was thirteen years old, but to this day she continues to use this cultural, sentimental, and nostalgic old pot. 

– Cole Silber

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more