Family Traditions

Matzoh Ball Chicken Soup (Family Recipe)

Sometimes beauty comes in a bowl of homemade matzoh ball chicken soup, a classic Ashkenazi Jewish comfort food. Yes, this pretty much symbolizes how I spent my afternoon, making my late mother's recipe for matzoh ball chicken soup--from scratch, of course, with a whole chicken, fresh vegetables, and herbs! The only departure from how I usually make this recipe is that this time I did not include dill weed in the making of the matzoh balls, simply because I was out of dill weed today and felt too lazy to go back to the store. Oh well, it still turned out to be very, very good, and I included some egg noodles in the soup, as well. Another good accompaniment to the matzoh balls is to sometimes break apart a sheet of matzoh and place it in the soup, then eat it with the soup as it softens. And then, of course, there's the chicken, so tender and so good, but not included here because I already ate my soup. This bowl is just for show (but it went back into the pot and will serve its purpose tomorrow!)

The path to the heart, and all of its love and cherished memories, lies through the stomach. What is it about the food we grew up with that strikes such a strong chord in us? I have several recipes of my mother's that are my all-time favorites, and I make sure to cook them from time to time. This is how we cherish the memories of mothers who have passed away; we make the recipes they made for us when we were young--the recipes that reminded us that we are loved. This is how we honor them, our mothers and our fathers, and any of those we love and with whom we once broke bread, but who are now gone. The dishes they made for us, or the dishes we made together, bring back those wonderful memories of times gone by. To be sure, making homemade matzoh ball chicken soup is not a complicated affair; in fact, it is a rather simple thing to do. But it is time-consuming and a lot of work, everything from inserting the ingredients into the pot and cooking them, to making the egg noodles and the matzoh balls, and from de-boning the chicken and cutting the carrots, to then straining the soup and combining all of the ingredients to serve. But I don't mind. Making a recipe like this always makes me feel like I'm coming home.