Gefilte Fish Divide

 Proverb: Beser gefilte fish eyder gefilte tsores (Better stuffed fish than stuffed troubles).

 

I would certainly rather have gefilte fish as opposed to stuffed troubles but the essential question is if that fish should be sweet or savory?

 

 The answer to this question depended historically on where you lived. This hotly contested divide created the very Jewish geographic feature known as "the gefilte fish line." 

 

 

The Polish marketplace was flooded with sugar in 1801 as the world's very  first sugar beet factory opened in Kunern, Silesia (now  Konary, Poland).  The fleshy tap root of the sugar beet is rich in sucrose. After the sweet stuff is sapped from the root, the pulp can be used to feed livestock. This wave of cheap and readily available sugar meant that many Polish dishes were liberally sprinkled with - including gefilte fish. 

 

 

Here is a link to the Foward's cooking show in Yiddish with English subtitles. They are making gefilte fish!

Here is a link to David Esheth's diddy Gefilte Fish.