Rituals of Love, Loss and Lokshen Kugel

By Adrienne Katz Kennedy

Kugels come in a wide variety. The one I reach for now, my mother’s recipe, includes egg noodles, cottage cheese, butter, sour cream and pineapple. Photo by Adrienne Katz Kennedy.

“God commands us to carry on with the act of living.”

 I can still hear these words said by the cantor of my parents’ synagogue as my mother, sister and I stood in the living room, surrounded by family and friends, mourning the death of my father. The three of us holding a piece of challah in our hands as we attempted to take a bite through the tears and the lumps in our throats. A command to eat the first act of the “living.”

 The day before my father died, my mother had called me from her home in Cleveland. “It’s time to get on a plane,” she said. She couldn’t manage much more than that, only to remind me to be safe and to text my sister when I arrived at the airport.

 I texted my husband and asked him to buy me a plane ticket for the next morning. I had somehow forgotten how to use the computer, how airplanes and coordinating layovers worked too. I texted my best friend asking what to pack for this kind of trip. She texted back a list: “5 pairs of underwear, 2 bras, a pair of shorts, 3 t-shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, and a dress you wouldn’t mind never wearing again.”

 I laid out the exact items from her list onto the bed, then walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboard, staring blankly into it. For the past six years, I had planned out almost every meal and snack for my two young children. Even when I was out of town for two weeks for work. Even when I took that one girls trip to Miami. I made my lists meticulously. I left meal plans on post-it notes and whiteboards on the fridge. Cut up veggies in Tupperware. Lasagnas portioned, labeled and tucked into the freezer. All areas of preparation now felt foreign to me, concepts I no longer understood.

 There is no sense of order during times of grief, not in our thoughts or actions or even in the food we eat. Grief is sloppy, it laps up over the edges of whatever it is we use in our attempt to contain it. It expands like bread dough. It takes up and over every possible vessel, dulling and diming everything it touches like a gelatinous ooze of grey, palate-numbing gravy. My own process of grief left no room for meticulous, factitious perfection, or precise measuring. No space for the ways in which I had learned to be, to plan, to control.

 Though I no longer consider myself religious—or perhaps I never really did—my hands instinctively drew upon my Jewish upbringing and Midwest sensibilities (read: fondness for casseroles). They began to dig out the ingredients to make luchon kugel, a combination of soft noodles, creamy, buttery sauce and sweet, scattered bits of fruit. Kugels come in a wide variety. The one I reach for now, my mother’s recipe, includes egg noodles, cottage cheese, butter, sour cream and pineapple, baked to form a top layer of crunchy, satisfying crust but still wonderfully homogenous inside—a soft, temporary landing spot for all of the sharpness.

A family photo of comfort in the kitchen.

Most kugels, noodle or otherwise do not demand precise measurements, leaving ample room and give for a little extra of something, a little scant of something else. Kugel, like most good comfort foods, allows for waning attention, of the cook or the consumer, and still somehow manages to deliver comfort to both through its gentleness. Too mild to over power an emotion, but rather it’s made to mix with grief’s invasive sauce, to temporarily dull it, providing relief rather than competition for attention.

 It is no wonder kugel is a customary food in so much of Ashkenazi tradition. I grew up eating it at Uncle Eddie and Aunt Shirley’s break-the-fast gathering at Yom Yippur, served alongside pickled herring, kreplah, challah and trays of cookies from the local kosher bakery and delicatessen. The holiday, known as The Day of Atonement, was spent partially or completely (depending on what form of Judaism you practice) at synagogue, with a growling stomach, while devoted to the practice of seeking forgiveness. Given the seriousness and somberness of the holiday it is customary to fast, partially so as not to dilute the attention with other things – especially ones of pleasure, like eating. After the twenty-four-hour fast—sunset to sunset—a soft noodle or potato filled casserole felt like an act of kindness, bringing with it a sense of relief from hunger and the layer of seriousness that had washed over everyone, even as a child.

 That same act of kindness is customary around death, as traditional Jewish practices include bringing food to those whom are grieving. According to the Talmud, the family in mourning are forbidden to cook or prepare food for themselves. Sitting shiva, a ritual of gathering and mourning following death, is also customary. Its length varies from family to family. In traditional shiva practices all mirrors in the house are covered, so that the family may devote themselves wholly and completely to their loss. They become reliant on community support in order to carry on with the most sacred act, the act of living, following a death.

Deli case kugel. Photo provided by author’s family.

This tie between the responsibility of the community, and that which is most sacred, the act of living, is held together through the practices of cooking, feeding and tending. It is measured through the number of deli trays, kugels, roasted chickens, tubs of soup, homemade pastries and challahs that show up unprompted. Often times the family will not even know who they are from, they are spared the details.  

 I cannot count the number that came through my mother’s door, as we encouraged, practically insisted, everyone who came over the course of the days to take a plate of food home. Eventually, we conceded and sifted the remains into single-sized portions and shoved them into the freezer so we wouldn’t have to look at their sad abundance any longer.

 I do not find it necessary to be religious of any nature in order to devoutly practice this call to cook and feed those in grief. I can see examples all around me through the practices of friends and strangers, in person and over the internet as grief and loss, uncertainty and chaos continue to nest inside all of our homes. We take turns feeding each other, physically and metaphorically, through the act of feeding and of tending a temporary soft landing spot for those needles.