Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.044 June 23, 1993 1) Wexler (Meylekh Viswanath) 2) Wexler's theory (Leo Goldstein) 3) Various (Pe'rets Mett) 4) Sissle bread, nokh a mol (Berl Hoberman) 5) Translation sought (Rob Frantz) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jun 22 23:28:51 1993 From: meylekh (viswanath@draco.rutgers.edu) Subject: Wexler 1) Apologies to ellen for alleging that she had not read wexler's article. 2) Stankiewicz's detailed yet pithy rebuttal to Wexler is exactly what the doctor ordered (and I requested)! Meylekh. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 23 10:46:40 1993 From: Leo Goldstein Subject: Wexler's theory Maybe Wexler's theory is wright, maybe is wrong... but at least is an important investigation about our past. We shoudn't refute his theory if we don't have any other (theory) that can take her place. Let's not destroy ideas, if we can't give new ones. Leo Goldstein 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 23 11:30:34 1993 From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk (Percy Mett) Subject: various 1. origin of yidish >presence in Yiddish of such typically "goyish" Romance words as >shul, kloyz, cholnt, benchn, ley(e)nen, preyen, techen, and the >proper names bunem, Please enlighten me - what are 'preyen, techen' ? 2. 'fontser' mayn zun iz letste vokh gekumn fun yerusholayem un er nitst dos vort 'fontser' [= compartment?]. khob es gezukht in vaynraykh ober nisht gtrofn. Any ideas on its origin? I haven't heard the word used before. Is it Polish? pe'rets mett 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 23 14:17:40 1993 From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Sissle bread, nokh a mol A year or more ago there was a long discussion of a kind of bread called "sissle bread" in Jewish bakeries mainly in New England. I just learned what I think is the definitive etymology from a retired baker (and Yiddishist) from Patchogue, Long Island, about 60 miles east of New York City, Mr. Leo Lang. He is in his seventies now; I don't know whether he was born in the U.S. or came as a child. When asked whether he had ever heard of sissle bread, he said yes, but the real name is /tsitsl broyt/; he translated /tsitsl/ as "tittie"! To explain it, he said, you need to choreograph it, and he proceeded to do so energetically. It's made from a very soft, loose, sticky dough, which is not put on an ordinary baking sheet or in bread pans. The dough is made in a large box, 4 or 5 feet square and about 8 inches high. To shape the bread the baker picks up a lump of dough from the box in his wet hands, holds it at the side of his chest, and "throws it up" and stretches it and fluffs it forward so as not to compress it -- hence the name. (A pizza crust is likewise made with a tossing and stretching motion. He then puts the bread on a wooden paddle (the English word is apparently "peel") held by another person, on a very thick layer of corn meal, but a much beadier, coarser grade of corn meal than the familiar kind. It was needed to keep the sticky dough from sticking to the paddle or the floor of the oven. (There was no corn in the dough itself.) It was much more work to make than the ordinary rye bread and therefore more expensive, and since it was shaped entirely by hand it was sold by weight rather than at a price per loaf. In English it is called "corn rye", but the corn rye sold in most places nowadays is not the authentic thing. Most bakers nowadays, he said, don't have the time or the technique (or discerning customers, I guess). Incidentally, the corn meal was called in Yiddish /indzhn mel/ or /endzhn mel/, that is, "Indian meal". And the supplier was a /flowmetsher/ "flour merchant". Bob (Berl) Hoberman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 23 15:12:28 1993 From: Rob Frantz Subject: English Translation of S. Asch's "Di Kishefmakherin fun Kastilyen" Ikh zukh far an inglishe iberzetsung fun Sholem Asch's "Di Kishefmakherin fun Kastilyen." Tsi emetzer vayst oyb dos iberzetsung ekzistirt? Rob Frantz ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.044