Food

Tailgating and Tradition

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By Rabbi Marc Wilson; illustrations by Scott Maxim

First, it was poker night, although I'd never been to one. Now, it's tailgate parties, and the closest I've ever been to one is changing a flat tire. I hold no gripe against tailgate parties, nor am I so snotty that I dismiss them as lowbrow sloth for the peons. After all, isn't symphony night at Chastain basically just a big bourgeois tailgate party?

Circumstances, not contempt, have precluded my opportunity to indulge, and I am certainly well at home with burgers, brats and brewsky. Here and there, you will find a menu more extravagant — perhaps a pot of chili (Brunswick stew?) or grill-charred chicken. But c'mon, we know that the real extravaganzas are largely trumped up for guest shots on Food Network.

We also know adult beverages are the real purpose of the tailgate party, or as my son Scott keenly observes, "Sometimes people pass out on their cars and don't make it into the game." That's why, I guess, some tailgaters think that football is counted by innings.

It'd be a stretch to say that we Jews invented the tailgate party. But the antecedent to today's tailgate party is clearly Jewish, an event celebrated with great flourish by our immigrant grandparents. It was euphemistically known as the "landsmanschaft picnic," but let there be no doubt that it reigned as the ultimate tailgate party well before the rivalry between Georgia and Florida. My grandparents arrived in Chicago fresh off the boat in 1921. As the years went by, they took on American ways but retained ties to the Old Country and old friends through the landsmanschaft — a club for people who came from the same shtetl to shmooze, play cards and gossip. In dark times they also ransomed landsleit (countrymen) from the grasp of Hitler whenever they could.

The landsmanschaft picnic was the apex of the year. By the time I was old enough to be taken along, the old-timers had aged, but they still spoke Yiddish about memories of their youth and starting over in the New Land.

My grandfather lorded over the picnic like a godfather. He had the charisma and grooming of Gotti, and he was the quintessential schmoozer: an arm around your shoulder; quick to grab your hand; a laugh enhanced by an asthmatic rasp; heaping more food on your plate, want it or not; calling to every kid, "Kum aher! " (Come here!); stuffing a dollar bill in each one's pocket.

Ah, the food . . . no middle-American fodder here, but robust, heavy, Old World cuisine, cooked or warmed on propane stoves strategically set in front of each tailgate. It intoxicated me. I luxuriated in the same food that my grandparents did, and let the hamburger-and-hot-dog kids be damned! It was a narcotic symphony of tastes and textures. The landsmanschaft picnic was all the holidays of the year rolled into one, served right from the tailgate, al fresco in the Garden of Eden:

Vampire-banishing garlicky brisket and orange-yellow gravy. Roasted "Shabbos" chicken. Oven-browned potatoes shimmering like motor oil. Throat-puckering sour pickles and tomatoes. Kasha varnishkes. Dense potato kugel. Stuffed cabbage, with and without raisins. All escorted downward with 2-cents plain from an old-time seltzer bottle, turned red and viscous by sappy syrup. Maybe a shot of Four Roses. Honestly, I do not remember the sweets, because I had already lapsed into a coma on well-fatted meat and potatoes well before dessert.

I assure you of this: no egg tosses or potato sack races, or for that matter, Braves or Falcons. Card games like Kaluki brought over from the Old Country. My grandfather leading the landsleit in Yiddish songs, happy, melancholy: Teyere Malkeh — "Fill again my cup with wine!" Hob'n Mir a Nigen'dl — "Let us sing a song of childhood!" A Sudenu — "How shall we host a feast for Messiah?" And the doleful Partizaner Lied, in memory of the Partisans who struggled valiantly against the Nazis — "Never say that you have walked the final path."

I think a lot about the landsleit and their arcane tailgate parties, all gone to their heavenly reward. I think of their arrival in Columbus' bountiful land, the hope, the fear, the unknowingness, the self-doubt. I think about how, as the decades wore on, the landsleit gathered to replicate the deliciousness of their long-ago salad days, their customs and cuisine yet intact. A tailgate party for which the "game" was to be victorious over despair.

Why I, too, miss those days I have yet to understand. Perhaps it is because the memories are not simply cherished, but consecrated. Oy, maybe one Sunday I'll take the kids to the game and show them a real tailgate party with brisket and potato kugel.

Konklet

(Old World hamburgers, fried in a cast-iron skillet on a tailgate "stove")

• 2 pounds ground chuck
• 1 medium onion, grated
• 2 (or more) garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup matzah meal
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup water (or enough to make mixture stick together)
• matzah meal to bread eight 4-ounce burgers
• 1 medium onion, coarsely or finely chopped (at your discretion)
• oil (schmaltz preferred) to cover iron skillet to 1/4 inch

Combine first six ingredients well. Form into eight 1/2-to-3/4-inch konklet'n (hamburger patties — fressers who want thicker burgers, adjust accordingly). Dredge patties in matzah meal.

Briefly sauté onion in medium-high heat. (Careful: Schmaltz has a low smoking/burning tolerance.) Saute konklet'n until juicy (a little schmaltzy) to the touch. Serve on challah rolls, although far more authentic to serve with mashed potatoes bound by more schmaltz and gribenes (chicken-skin cracklings).

Grodner Potato Kugel

• 8-10 medium-to-large brown baking potatoes, peeled
• 3 carrots, peeled
• 3 medium onions
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or schmaltz
• 1/2 cup matzah meal
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon salt (or more)
• 1 teaspoon pepper (or more)
• nonstick spray

Coarsely chop and sauté onions in vegetable oil or schmaltz, until translucent. Do not drain oil.

Coarsely (that's the key) grate potatoes and carrots (Salad Shooter is great for this). I do not use a food processor, as it makes the potatoes too mushy. This kugel is "stand up" style.

Thoroughly combine sautéed onions, matzah meal and eggs, with grated potatoes/carrots — mix thoroughly.

Spray nonstick in 9-by-12-inch baking pan (disposable aluminum is fine). Add mixture and bake 2 1/2 hours (or a little more) at 375 degrees. Use toothpick method to test for doneness. If top is getting too dark, cover loosely with foil.

Great with brisket, konklet or chicken.

Litvak Stuffed Cabbage

• 1 large head cabbage
• 1 grated medium onion
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons (or more) raw regular rice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2-2 pounds ground chuck
• 2 eggs
• 1/8 cup matzah meal

Sauce:

• Handful of raisins
• 1 tablespoon vinegar (optional)
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 4 ounces tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (adjust to taste)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 No. 2 can tomatoes
• 1 1/2-2 cups brown sugar (adjust to taste)

Core cabbage. Immerse in boiling water until leaves are soft. Combine meat with six remaining ingredients. Place mound of meat in cup of each leaf and roll up. Place remaining leaves in bottom of Dutch oven. Arrange rolled leaves in layers, seam-side down, alternated with sliced onions. Pour on sauce. Simmer on top of stove at least 2 hours.

Accompany with rice or mashed potatoes.

Marc Howard Wilson is a rabbi, chef and writer in Greenville, S.C. His essays can be found at www.MarcsMusings.com. Contact him at MarcWilson1216@aol.com.

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