Pe'tcha

[stefanyb]

Well, I got together with some people who are more closely connected to the old Jewish traditions and foods than I am and wouldn't you know, they served, among other things, pe'tcha.

It was pretty good. Picture an aspic mold with pieces of carrot and veal suspended in a jellied broth made from the calves feet cooking liquid. They served it with vinegar.

Who remembers this and what else is there to know about it?

Edited December 22, 2002 by stefanyb (log)

[CathyL]

Not a favorite of mine, but my mom makes it to please friends who crave it. In my family pe'tcha was always served hot, meat still on the bone (I think), rich and flavorful but, well, gluey.

Want I should ask for her recipe, Stef?

[stefanyb]

Not a favorite of mine, but my mom makes it to please friends who crave it.  In my family pe'tcha was always served hot, meat still on the bone (I think), rich and flavorful but, well, gluey. 

Want I should ask for her recipe, Stef?

Shaw mamaleh.

I would like to try and make it if someone knows who might sell me calves feet

Tanks dahlink.

[Tonyfinch]

In the Uk this is called Fis (pro: Feece). Don't know how its spelt.

It used to be very popular but is now rare even in Jewish restaurants. I last saw it in Harry Morgan's in St. John's Wood. I've only ever known it served cold, with vinegar (MALT vinegar that is) as Stefany says. It is the most gelatinous savoury dish I've ever eaten. I'm sure it's sometimes served with hard boiled egg inside the jelly.

As an aside the East End Asian community make a dish called Payah-which is hot lamb's trotters. It's a very soupy dish with only a little gelatinous flesh left clining to the bone.

[macrosan]

I never heard this called pe'tcha, but I also know it as fis. Very prosaic, those East European Jews. They called a shovel a shovel, and they called calve's foot jelly fis which is Yiddish for "feet"

My father goes crazy for this, and they used to serve it in Bloom's in Whitechapel, but I think not in Golders Green. There were sliced hard-boiled eggs embedded in the jelly. My mother used to make it every week, so I'll try to get a recipe.

Edited December 22, 2002 by macrosan (log)

[Simon Majumdar]

Not just a jewish dish.

Queen Victoria is known to have sworn by the restorative affect of calves foot jelly and I remember having it as a kid when I was ill.

S

[CathyL]

Not just in the UK. We called it fis when I was a kid and my Romanian grandmother made it; I'll ask my mother if she knows anything about the etymology.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Petcha and fisalach (which is what they called them in my house) are are the same thing. Here is a recipe off the net;

Petcha

My mother used to make this for my father on occassion. Gross.

[CathyL]

Here's another Googled recipe, from Mimi Sheraton: click. This one is close to my family's version; I remember lots of lemon.

[Jinmyo]

My mother used to make this. Fis. With hard eggs and malt vinegar.

[Sandra Levine]

My grandmother used to make petcha, also sometimes called fis. I remember tons of garlic in the dish. I was excused from the table when this (or brains) were served, so gross did I find both dishes.

[macrosan]

Can someone tell me where the name petcha comes from ?

[Jinmyo]

My grandmother used to make petcha, also sometimes called fis.  I remember tons of garlic in the dish.  I was excused from the table when this (or brains) were served, so gross did I find both dishes.

Brains, hearts, livers, kidneys, tongues, lungs, feet, cheese that smelled like feet, were all a big part of my childhood. Couldn't avoid it.

[Sandra Levine]

I didn't realize that we had grown up in the same house. Remember the liver? Was it cooked gray through and through so that you need a steak knife to cut it? Lungen stew? My mother loved petcha, but even she wouldn't touch that. I did like tongue, though.

[CathyL]

My mom didn't know where the name came from but guessed it was regional.

Her (Polish) family's recipe: cut the feet into 2" chunks and pile into a large roaster with cut-up onion, lots of garlic and paprika. Cover everything with water, clap on the lid and roast overnight in a slow oven. By morning, the meat should be falling off the bone. Ladle into soupbowls and eat. Or not.

Mom told me her father would come home with the calf's entire lower leg, from knee to ankle, often still bristling with, um, bristles. Her mother singed the leg over a gas burner to clean it up before it was chopped into pieces.

The lemony version I remember is from my dad's family. When the Air Force stationed him in Clovis, New Mexico my grandmother in Denver packed several jars of fis in dry ice and sent it to him on the train. But my pregnant mom was so nauseated by the smell she had to sit outside while he ate a jar's worth. Later that night she told him she could smell it through the refrigerator, and begged him to throw the rest out.

Jin, my maternal grandmother had a separate set of dishes for the cow's udder, since it was both meat and milk.

[Jinmyo]

No, my mother did liver rare.

Tongue sandwiches!!

[CathyL]

Yes, tongue sandwiches. The liver in my house was pinkish gray...

[Jinmyo]

Cathy, I didn't even know fis was Jewish then. In fact I don't think I even knew what "Jewish" meant.

[CathyL]

Jin, if you're comfortable discussing it, how did fis come to be in your mother's repertoire?

[Sandra Levine]

Tongue sandwiches!!

With ketchup, for me.

[Jinmyo]

Cathy, I always thought it was just typical British food. Like jellied eel. My mother was adept at spending as little as is possible but getting as much volume and flavour as possible. So guts were big.

edit:

Ack! Ketchup! No, English mustard and onions.

Edited December 22, 2002 by Jinmyo (log)

[stefanyb]

Thanks all for the info and recipes.

Jinny, are you quite clear about your genetic heritage? There may have been a story or two about your forefathers and mothers left untold.

Any recipes for hentalach?

[Jinmyo]

Stefany, Welsh/Italian/French etc. All Goyische.

So what's hentalach already?

[Sandra Levine]

Little hands. Edited December 22, 2002 by Sandra Levine (log)

[cakewalk]

I wonder if there's an etymological connection between pe'tcha and p'shaw!

I remember my father eating this (if someone else in the building made it and gave us some; my mother never, ever made it). Revolting.

There's a dish called something like "souse" or "soust" that is sort of a cultural equivalent of pe'tcha, but it is made with pig's feet (and ears, and snouts, etc.). It's a "soul food" dish, a woman I worked with years ago introduced me to it (I couldn't touch it, and it had nothing to do with kashrut!).

It's the stuff that the "rich people" used to throw away. Why bother with feet when you can get the expensive, tasty cuts of the animal? The poorer people learned to make good use of the stuff that the rich threw out. It's interesting that different cultures more or less created the same type of dish, for pretty much the same reasons. (But I still think it's revolting.)