Michael Wex
By Michael Wex
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: Food and Drink, Part 3
Since we’ve already had a glimpse of the main categories of Yiddish food, today we’ll look at everything you need for a balanced meal: vegetable, grains, main courses, a few uniquely Yiddish side dishes and something to wash it all down with. Vegetables BOOrik beet KROYT cabbage MAIR carrot OOgerkeh cucumber KNOBL garlic KHRAIN horseradish…
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: Second Helping
Categories of Kosher Jewish law divides permitted food into three main categories: MILkhiks dairy FLAYshiks meat PARveh neither The categories are pretty straightforward, once you know that poultry is considered meat — an instance of divine grace that has kept khayder cafeterias chicken à la king-free since before the time of Jesus, because meat and…
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: Food and Drink
The main problem with eating all the time is that it can get in the way of talking. Contrary to popular belief, Yiddish-speakers aren’t obsessed with food; they’re obsessed with talking about food, especially what’s wrong with it: it’s the memory of food that attracts them. Much like bores who haunt cocktail parties, telling you…
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: Old Age
The idea that age alone is enough to make you important is fundamental to traditional Jewish life, and people are always wanting to know how old you are, especially if you’re unmarried. VEE ALT ZENT EER? How old are you? is the standard “secular” way of asking a person’s age. If you’re dealing with much…
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: Latrine Detail
‘Inter faeces et urinam nascimur,” wrote Saint Augustine, who just became the first Church Father ever quoted in a guide to Yiddish conversation. “We are born between feces and urine,” he says, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves; the birth canal through which all of us enter this world is located between the…
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: Nu!
Among the best-known words in the language, nu is sometimes heard in English these days, but rarely among non-Jews and never with the vast range of meaning that it can have in Yiddish. Things have changed considerably since 1958 or ’59 when I went tearing out of the room where I’d been watching “December Bride”…
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: How Are You, cont’d.
The usual responses to general questions about your welfare are: nishKOOsheh Not bad E-E-H A less confident “not bad” FRAIG NISHT Don’t ask AF MEIneh SONim geZUGT It should happen to my enemies. E-e-h and nishkoosheh are two of many Yiddish words with a pronounced physical component. In order to use either of them effectively:…
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Culture Just Say ‘Nu?’: Seasonal Greetings
In our last installment, we looked at the most common of all Yiddish greetings, shoolem alaykhem, and its inevitable response, alaykhem shoolem. As with virtually all Yiddish greetings, alaykhem shoolem is often, though not inevitably, followed by a challenge in the form of nu, which has a basic meaning of “so” or “well,” as if…
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