high holiday tour

 

korrina, josh and i met at the tenement museum today for a special tour of the lavine and rogarshevsky apartments to see how they may have cleaned and decorated for the jewish high holidays.

we first stopped at an empty apartment to see the different wallpaper and paint layers of the many prior occupants and also to talk about a few artifacts that were found.

above is a copy of a synagogue ticket which would have been purchased for entrance to the service for the holiday. there were several synagogues in the neighborhood, but many temporary ones would have popped up especially for the high holiday season.

the lavine family lived in the building around the 1890's and the rogarshevsky family around 1910.

challah bread ready for baking . . 

laundry drying . . 

the rogarshevsky kitchen which included a bed (they had a big family with six children).

the red towel indicating the dishes used for meat . . 

and the blue towel for dairy.

hinde amhanitski's 1901 yiddish cookbook, a manual for cooking and baking.

the table set with apples, bread, prayer book, sugar and candlesticks, and holiday cards along the mantel.

it seems that mailing holiday cards was so popular that the post office was inundated and requested that they not send so many. (these two photos by korrina.)

hester and orchard streets . . 

and how it looked in 1898 when the pushcarts vendors would sell nuts, clothing, toys, books and many other goods.

the department store of edward ridley stood at grand and orchard and would have been another place for the neighborhood residents to shop.

the same building today . . 

culinary historian and author sarah lohman explaining her process of translating one of hinde amhanitski's recipes for baking today.

she chose a lemon cake made with citron. the batter was a mix of flour, milk, eggs and butter, half of which she spread on a baking sheet, sprinkled with citron, and then layered with the remainder.

i think everyone especially enjoyed this part.

looking through an old cookbook of the time period . .

 

prune sauce with orange rind, cinnamon and a little orange juice . . 

it was a very fun tour and korrina and i also enjoyed talking with the food historian afterwards.

when i got back home, chanda and greg informed me that i had missed all the excitement as the cats had managed to catch a bird sitting on the window ledge. the window hadn't been open very far but they were able to grab a mourning dove through the screen and drag it into the room! it was all over by the time greg discovered the poor dead bird in a corner by his side of the bed. i was glad to miss the whole fiasco.