Kosher Eucharist / יוקאריסט כשר

I was going to make this post into a lengthy manifesto of unhealthy activities, but then I realized that I still haven’t written me and Chris’ life stories on the Kosher Eucharist About Us page (AKA, “Mommy, What’s a Kosher Eucharist?”), and I didn’t want to wind up repeating myself. But don’t worry, even if I save for later the unveiling of our rich history of self-abuse, drug use, sinning against the Lord in thought, word, and deed, saturated fat-rich diets and unabashed daily tune-ins to the Lifetime channel (”Alright, it’s been two weeks, it’s really time to go to anthroplogy…” “But ‘She Was 15 and Pregnant and Fought Alone Against a Baby For Sale with Another Woman’s Husband’ is on! It’s got Valerie Bertinelli and Angela Lansbury as the Queen Mother, and they totally make out to give the set-upon people of London the courage they need to overcome the Blitz!” “You know, who the fuck cares about australopithecus?”), I have plenty of current unhealthy material.

For example, before I decided to write this post, I spent the better part of an hour lying in bed in the dark listening to Mad Professor’s dub version of Massive Attack’s Protection and staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling. Considering that by all accounts these should be the best years of my life, and that according to the Israeli Defense Forces I am a flawless and virile physical specimen, I should probably be spending my nights on the town, jitterbugging and lindyhopping with the skirts or whatever the fuck it is the kids are doing these days, but instead I listen to dubbed-out trip-hop alone in the dark until I discorporate.

And trading in a social life for a strenuous, if sedentary, program of aural improvement isn’t my only unhealthy activity. I’m also getting into the spirit of the approaching holiday season the best way I know how: eating fried, filled,and powdered-sugared dough pastries. Because nothing can fill a void in the soul, or at least a void in your pants’ waistband, like delicious holiday treats (Chris, for example, likes to commemorate the birth of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by chugging cartons of eggnog), I’ve become a sufganiyah connoisseur. Haaretz has the full strawberry jelly on this most arterially-damaging of holiday delicacies.

My favorite, without a doubt, is the vanilla cream kind, followed by caramel. There are few pleasures in the world akin to that that of biting down on a hot, fresh, firm-yet-pliable sufganiyah, powdered sugar spraying onto your clothes and facial hair, and being rewarded upon reaching the center with a burst of creamy delicious vanilla goodness.

I’ve been bringing them into the office on more than one morning, but Harry and Ben insisted that I stop, because Harry and Ben are married men, and married men tend to live with the kind of women who exert strict controls over the consumption of scrumptious holiday treats. Such is the territory, I reckon.

So that’s my unhealthy habit of late, although I think I have to stop soon, because as always I worry about keeping my girlish figure. But don’t worry - the sufganiyah’s seasonal nature doesn’t mean that I’ll be out of a vice come post-Chanukah time. I think I’ll even get a head start. It’s time to eat a Krembo, drink a few screwdrivers, and go to bed. I hear that I’m low-class and Israeli, so I guess I might as well start living up to that lofty appellation.

Actually, in a brief aside since we’re on the topic of Israeli sweets and I mentioned the Krembo, I learned this about that distinguished snack’s history today from Wikipedia:

The forerunner of the Krembo was created about 200 years ago in Denmark, where it is a most popular sweet. In Denmark it is rather misguidingly known as a flødebolle (cream bun). It is also sometimes known as a negerbolle (negro bun) or negerkys (negro kiss), though these latter names are becoming less common, most likely due to higher social awareness of racial issues. Denmark also has a variation of the Krembo, which is slightly shorter in the height, but about twice as big in the width. Due to its shape it is known as a bøf (hamburger).

The Krembo was subsequently manufactured in various Northern European countries under names like Nigger in the United Kingdom, Negerkuss (negro kiss) in Germany and many other countries, or some variant thereof. In Flanders, it is called Negerinnentet (negress titties). However these names were later on changed to more neutral terms. In Austria, they are called Schwedenbomben (Swedish bombs). It is also similar to the South American candy, Alfajor, and the American Mallomar. In Finland a similar candy is manufactured by Brunberg Oy. Its name was changed in 1998 from Neekerinsuukko, Negro’s kiss, to Brunbergin suukko (Brunberg’s kiss). Released by Ghandour in Lebanon, Krembo were originaly called ras el abd (slave’s head), but have since been changed to Tarboush (Fez).

Okay. Sure, I’m not surprised that a country like Lebanon would come up with a name like “Slave’s Head” for an innocent children’s candy (this is the country, after all, that brought you Hizbullah and has to live with the unique ignominy of having been controlled by both France AND Syria, which is sort of like being double-stuffed by two sloppy drunk members of the loser frat), but Moses and all the prophets, Negress titties? “Oh, bless his little heart, Dierick really loves those Negress titties.”

I’m surprised it’s not called “Neshikat Kushi” in Hebrew, given Israel’s oft-amusing disregard for even the most basic of racial sensitivities.