Up to this very date I had always thought my personal real life story of "my Carp" was unique. I was blown away when I was asked by my daughter, at last week's seder to relate my story to her friends.. It was a story I told my children for years, not as a holiday yarn but just as a personal boyhood experience. I never related it publicly.
My true story has just a slight twist in that as a child I was always interested in fish and to this day was never without a fish tank or pond. At the time I lived in an apartment building in NYC. I am of the same age as Barbara Cohen. My uncle was in the smoked fish business and knowing my avid interest in fish promised he would one day send me a fish. That day happend right before Passover(I was about 10) when a man knocked on the back door with a bundle of newspapers under his arm. He asked for me and handed me a huge live Carp! Unbeleivable! It went into the servant's bath tub and became known as "Donny's fish".
About three days later when I came home from school it was gone. Allegedley died.
At our annual seder at my granma's house in Brooklyn my Dad raved about the gefilte fish as "the best ever". When one of my Aunt's informed him it was "Donny's fish" he just about gave it all back. And so began the family tale that I thought was so unique until my daughter's friend exclaimed'I've heard that story before". Impossible I said, a little ruefully. Subsequently she emailed info on Barbara's book. What I never knew was the common practice in those days of harboring the carp in the bath tub. Anyway it pleases me that so many more people can appreciate a semblence of my coveted tale.(tail)
04/06/2009
Up to this very date I had always thought my personal real life story of "my Carp" was unique. I was blown away when I was asked by my daughter, at last week's seder to relate my story to her friends.. It was a story I told my children for years, not as a holiday yarn but just as a personal boyhood experience. I never related it publicly.
My true story has just a slight twist in that as a child I was always interested in fish and to this day was never without a fish tank or pond. At the time I lived in an apartment building in NYC. I am of the same age as Barbara Cohen. My uncle was in the smoked fish business and knowing my avid interest in fish promised he would one day send me a fish. That day happend right before Passover(I was about 10) when a man knocked on the back door with a bundle of newspapers under his arm. He asked for me and handed me a huge live Carp! Unbeleivable! It went into the servant's bath tub and became known as "Donny's fish".
About three days later when I came home from school it was gone. Allegedley died.
At our annual seder at my granma's house in Brooklyn my Dad raved about the gefilte fish as "the best ever". When one of my Aunt's informed him it was "Donny's fish" he just about gave it all back. And so began the family tale that I thought was so unique until my daughter's friend exclaimed'I've heard that story before". Impossible I said, a little ruefully. Subsequently she emailed info on Barbara's book. What I never knew was the common practice in those days of harboring the carp in the bath tub. Anyway it pleases me that so many more people can appreciate a semblence of my coveted tale.(tail)