Borscht (or Schav) for Believers

Borscht (or Schav) for Believers

This is the way to enable the Colombian coffee and the Indonesian tea drinkers to evolve into borscht and schav* mavens. The first is to introduce the art of slicing in vegetables, mostly cucumbers but also some diced red radishes and chives or scallion shoots. Then, there is the issue of a hard-boiled egg. Some say it should be sliced with a hard-boiled-egg slicer, the kind that mom had in a kitchen drawer with the rubber band collection and the old manual can & bottle opener. Others, mainly from the “Catskill-Rockaway Vacation School” propound a theory that the egg should be fork-mashed right into the bowl of cold soup, or on a side dish and then pushed into the mixture.

But, the most significant stumbling block for the modern borscht-schav enthusiast revolves around the issue of a dairy garnish. Traditional households would add a dollop of pure sour cream – highest fat content this side of pork belly – to the bowl; suddenly, what might have been a healthy lunch is now a ticket to a meeting with Dr. Cardio-Bypass. Evolved man, with his wife controlling the shopping list, is now consigned to fat-free yogurt as a substitute; it’s not as good, but at least the better yogurts get the overall color right.

The remaining issue to be resolved is the boiled potato accompaniment. Our position is that it should be presented on the side in small, uneven chunks of potato boiled until almost a paste; when added to the cold soup it should act in part as garnish and filler and, in part, as thickener. The bowl, filled with the cold soup, egg, vegetable, and potato, is a meal, particularly if served with a thick slice or two of black bread or seeded rye; follow it with a cup of coffee or a glass of ice coffee, and you’ve created a bit of Jewish heaven on a Tuesday afternoon.

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*Schav is a cold soup made of sorrel leaves; a Polish-Jewish vichyssoise. While the jar variety leaves a bit to be desired, it is a useable reference point to determine whether your homemade variety is even close.