Wednesday, September 27, 2017 // The Statement
7B
Personal Statement: Mandelbrot
L
ast week, just in time for the Jew-
ish high holidays, a care pack-
age arrived from home. Grinning
uncontrollably, I knew exactly what
it was the minute I got it. Inside the box was
a mound bundled in tinfoil and bubble wrap
and cellophane, tied with a ribbon. “For a
sweet New Year!” was written on a tag —
referring to Rosh Hashanah, the holiday that
signifies the beginning of a new year in the
Jewish religion. After careful inspection, I
opened the cellophane and tore through the
tinfoil, instantly getting crumbs and cinna-
mon and sugar all over my shirt. My excited
sneaking suspicion was correct: My mom sent
me a package of her famous mandelbrot.
Mandelbrot is a cookie popular among
Eastern European Jews, liter-
ally meaning “almond bread”
in Yiddish. Cut from a loaf
into one-inch slices and baked
twice, the delicate treat can be
mistaken for biscotti’s softer
first cousin or the chocolate
chip cookies’ thinner — and
somewhat frailer — uncle, but
one bite proves otherwise.
Every time I hear those
three syllables, my ears perk
up, my mouth begins to water
and I mentally prepare myself
to delve into a delicious piece
of
my
great-grandmother’s
mandelbrot recipe. The aroma
produces a visceral reaction,
a Pavlovian response. I know
I’m about to enjoy a welcoming
mouthful of chocolate, cinna-
mon and sugar.
***
Our family’s mandelbrot —
“or ‘mandelbread’ as the gen-
tiles would call it,” my grandma
would interject — dates all the
way back to the early 1900s. I
say it’s my great-grandmother’s
recipe, but her neighbor, Mrs.
Wertheim, was the true cre-
ator of this particular combina-
tion. In what has been retold to
seem like a covert operation, my
mom had to coerce Mrs. Wert-
heim’s niece to sneak her the
top-secret recipe when her aunt
wasn’t looking.
We still give Mrs. Wertheim
credit, but ever since that recipe
handoff more than 25 years ago,
the mandelbrot recipe has been
altered a bit, thus becoming the
nucleus of the Katz household.
Hosting the Katz’s for Rosh
Hashanah dinner? Get out a
tray for their delicious mandelbrot. Going
over to the Katz’s house for Passover? Get
ready for their amazing Passover mandelbrot,
a different — yet just as tasty — recipe, made
without flour and replaced with matzah meal.
Sometimes I feel like our dessert gets us the
invites.
Much of Jewish culture is centered around
food, as is the case with many different eth-
nicities. The laughable, yet accurate, remark I
hear all the time from my relatives that sum-
marizes every Jewish holiday is “They tried
to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” Food is a major
part of our cultural identity — pastrami and
corned beef on rye with a cup of matzah ball
soup is a mantra I live by — and my family’s
mandelbrot recipe perfectly describes this
importance.
The word mandelbrot doesn’t just mean I’m
about to eat my favorite sweet; that’s not what
it truly represents. The tradition of a family
recipe links the generations while facilitating
the creation of new memories. This heavenly
loaf has the power to bring together a family
and sometimes an entire community together
in times of happiness and sadness.
Along with joyous occasions like holidays
and birthdays, mandelbrot can also serve as
a form of solace for those grieving. A staple in
Jewish culture, the dessert infuses an inex-
plicable sense of comfort. Our family’s go-to
dish to bring to a shiva — a weeklong grieving
period in Judaism — is mandelbrot, for good
reason. The crunchy bite doesn’t just give off
a homey feeling, but it also provides one of
comfort, a sort of distraction from pain.
Yes, I am biased, but I truly believe my
mom makes the best mandelbrot in the
world. Although a somewhat simple recipe
of eight ingredients, for some unknown rea-
son, friends who have attempted it have been
unable to deliver.
***
My mom used to tell me a man who knows
how to cook or bake will always make his
wife very happy. I immediately became her
permanent sous chef. Looking back, that was
probably just a ploy to get me to help make
dinner — or maybe to spend quality time with
her oldest child.
Ever since I can remember, I have helped
my mother finish off the loaves
with a dusting of cinnamon
and sugar. Now I know the
recipe by heart, perfecting
the
chocolate-chip-to-batter
ratio. With this comes a great
responsibility
to
continue
passing on the joy of this man-
delbrot recipe to future gen-
erations — the common theme
in Judaism of l’dor v’dor,
“from generation to genera-
tion” in Hebrew — and doing
so all the while touching oth-
ers with this taste of family.
It may seem cliche, but
even though I’m 511 miles
away from home, this des-
sert makes me feel like I’m
still just a boy sneaking a taste
after helping his mom with
the cinnamon and sugar dust-
ing. For a split second when I
ripped through the tinfoil and
started to pick at the man-
delbrot, I wasn’t in my dorm
room, but rather at home eat-
ing the treat that makes my
ears perk up and my mouth
begin to water.
For that one moment, as I
ate the first piece of mandel-
brot, I felt a sense of love and
security, protecting me from
the outside and the stresses
of college. I’m reminded of my
culture, of home.
Mandelbrot is so much
more than food to me. It repre-
sents a special bond between a
mother and her son. It repre-
sents a cultural identity being
passed down for generations.
It represents celebrating the
happy times and mourning the
sad ones.
by Benjamin Katz, Daily Sports Writer
PHOTO COURTESY OF BENJAMIN KATZ