Easter Boscht -- by Martha

My grandfather and his friend built St. Michael's church, brick by brick with their own hands. That tells you the role that the Catholic Church played in our Polish-American family. Easter, next to Christmas, was the most important day of the year. On Holy Saturday, the priest would come to the house to bless our food, and as I recall, there was little eating on Holy Saturday. But Easter morning was an annual ritual. First there was the discovery of the huge, candy-filled Easter basket that had been hidden under the bed by the Easter bunny. (I actually remember the disappointment the year I got too old for the Easter bunny. I still peeked hopefully under my bed.)

There were new Easter clothes, hats, gloves ... of course to be covered by the winter coat, because in New England, it may have still be snowing on Easter! All this happened before we would go to 8:30 Mass. Mass was NOT the highlight of my day. The liturgy was in Latin and the sermon in Polish ... I was not impressed. But then, off to my grandmother's for Easter soup --- borscht. There were no beets, no sour cream, so beats me where the name came from. But borscht it was called. I have never seen a recipe for this soup. I'm sure its roots came from Austria and Poland where my grandparents were born and some of the ingredients suggest a Seder meal of sorts.... horshradish, boiled eggs.

We did not have traditionally colored eggs. Ours were dyed in onion skins, giving them a beautiful amber color. (Martha Stewart talks about doing this with her family.) The onion skins were collected throughout the year in a brown net bag hung from a nail in the basement. The ham had been boiled the day before and the broth saved. The kielbasa had been fried and was all cut up on a plate and we picked up the bread from the Jewish bakery on the way back from church.

Here's the way the soup was made. The fat skimmed off the broth and raw egg yolks were added to give the broth some body. To that, "sour salt" was added to taste. Everyone would take their hardboiled egg(s) and cut it into a bowl. Add pieces of ham, kielbasa and chunks of rye bread. Now, take a fresh horseradish root and scrape horseradish onto the soup. Finish it off with a ladle of piping hot broth.

Soup of the Gods ... eaten at 10 AM on an empty stomach!

My family has dispersed, St. Michael's Church has been torn down, but the soup endures. I still make it most Easter Sundays, even if it is only a small bowl for me. The ingredients have been adjusted to make it a little more healthful ... I use Canadian bacon instead of ham, turkey sausage for kielbasa. I cannot find a good loaf of rye bread to save my life. But the smell of sour salt and horseradish make me feel like I'm sitting at my grandmother's kitchen table.