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Ingredient
“There is something missing in these potato pancakes.
Potatoes, flour, onion, salt …” aloud he enumerated the
ingredients. “I must have forgotten something.”
“Nothing is missing,” I reassured the host. He liked
indulging himself with cuisine, but most of all entertaining
his friends to his home-made dishes.
“Being retired, when you can no longer dash ahead you
tend to look into the past. Our post-war generation still
remembers hunger. Did my mother add whole eggs or just
yolks?” he looked at his potato pancake which did not seem
to diminish.
Potato pancakes melted away in my mouth to full
satisfaction, and words wished to remain silent.
“Even though all the products in them are the best quality
…” he waved his fork, disconsolate, kept putting it away on
the table and picking it up again.
“Actually, mother, you did not spoil us with food,” he spoke
to a framed photograph of his mother and father sitting at a
table and smiling away from beyond. “If you think about it,
at home we had either potatoes or potato pancakes,
alternating with dumplings or noodles, and not much else.