Good food is worth a thousand words—sometimes more. In My Family Recipe, a writer shares the story of a single dish that’s meaningful to them and their loved ones.
My grandma’s grandma left Romania for America 130-something years ago. She was 12 or 13 or 14 and her name was Anna “S-c-h-o-r,” Grandma spelled to me over the phone. When I asked why Anna left, she sounded surprised by the question. Wasn’t it obvious? “Because we’re Jewish.”
In the late 19th century, there was a mass emigration of Jews leaving Eastern Europe, largely to Western Europe and the United States. According to A History of the Jewish People by H.H. Ben-Sasson: “In Rumania, the government and population conducted an economic war on the Jews, the declared aim of which was to drive them out of the country.”
And so Anna left. It goes without saying that I never met her, but Grandma says she was sweet, “a lovely housewife and mother.” She was also a lovely cook, which, unlike her surname, I already knew. I’ve been eating Anna’s spoonable, garlicky, olive oily eggplant spread my entire life.
It’s a simple dish: You roast an eggplant and bell pepper into oblivion. Peel and chop them. Mix with raw onion and garlic, olive oil and vinegar. Lots of salt. And that’s it.
If you want to know what it’s called, well, same. I don’t know. No one in my family does, at least not for sure. When I was growing up, we called it “Grandma’s eggplant,” or “Grandma eggplant,” or shorter still, “eggplant.”
Its Romanian name fell off the map years ago. When I asked Grandma what she called it when she was growing up, her answer turned out to be the same as mine: “We just called it ‘eggplant,’” she laughed. “Or chopped eggplant. Or eggplant appetizer.”
But I kept wondering what Anna called it.
Sometime in the last few years, we started to think the mystery word might be potlagel, pronounced pot-lah-gel. Google this and you’ll get an unconvincing 5,960 results. Yet the top hits lead to blog comment sections that sound a lot like my family’s living room: people talking about the best eggplant dish they ever ate, which came from a grandmother who came from Romania.
Say, on Tales of a Kitchen, the author Chris Anca shares a recipe for “Traditional Roasted Eggplant Salad.” She writes about how “back home, in Romania, we had to cook with the seasons.” Her mother froze roasted eggplants just to make this dish—a close cousin to Anna’s recipe. Anca’s family uses mustard, ours doesn’t. We include roasted bell pepper, they don’t. But the spirit is the same.
The comment section is where it gets good:
“Exact recipe my great grandmother always made except for the mustard,” Joanna writes. “I’m 3 generations away from Romanian living so I speak, well…none. My great grandmother always called this dish something that sounded like: pot laja. Can you tell me the actual Romanian name?”
“Oh, I think it has different traditional names depending on region within Romania!” Anca replies. “We just call it eggplant ‘salad.’”
Then everyone starts chiming in.
“We call it potlagel,” Lynn says. “My mother has been craving it lately (her mother was Roumanian)—so I’ve been making it for her. No mustard or lemon juice in our recipe (although I would like to add some, or some garlic), as Mom wants it with just onions.”
Rebecca’s grandmother “made that also!” But she spelled it “put la jell.”
Fredi’s grandmother also made that also! Her family called it “putlagella” but “I have no idea how it is spelled!”
So at least I’m not the only one.
If you start to beep-boop-bop on Google translate, these words start to make more sense. Translate the English eggplant into Romanian and you get vânătă or pătlăgea vânătă. Similarly, translate eggplant into Yiddish and you get פּאַטלעזשאַן or patlezhan. Both of which sound pretty close to potlagel.
Then I hit a bump in the road. The more digging I did, the more I started to notice another, totally different term: salata de vinete. On the blog My Weekend Kitchen, author Ashima Ashima Goyal Siraj writes: “Romanians actually call this deliciously smoky eggplant dip, a salad—Salata de Vinete (eggplant salad).”
Indeed, the plural eggplants translates to the Romanian vinete, a derivative of the above vânătă. Meanwhile, salad translates to salată (big surprise). Why didn’t that name stick around in my family? Herman Edel’s book Red Horse Radish has an idea:
“What is ‘Salada de Venita’? Well first of all, that is its Romanian name, while it is called ‘Potla Jel’ in Yiddish and probably had as many other names as there were other tongues spoken in this crazy world. Whatever the name, it is simply the most delicious salad that has ever been created.”
Or is it? The easy explanation for this dish's apparent lack of popularity would be: People don’t like eggplant spread (or salad or dip or whatever you want to call it). But we all know that isn’t true. Because eggplant spread is pretty popular.
Just ask baba ganoush. This Middle Eastern eggplant spread recipe yields, let’s see, 1,920,000 results on Google. One of which is an eggplant roundup by Bon Appétit called “Beyond Baba Ganoush”, as if baba ganoush is the default way to use an eggplant. And maybe it is.
What exactly distinguishes baba ganoush is up for debate. The Guardian published a piece breaking down all the ingredient possibilities, such as tahini, yogurt, parsley, mint, cumin, and pomegranate. “Is this delicious smoky dip the ultimate aubergine recipe?” the author Felicity Cloake asks. If you’re asking in a headline, the answer is probably: probably.
In any case, the ultimate eggplant recipe is definitely not this, according to the internet. Maybe because, compared to baba ganoush, it’s a lot simpler. There aren’t a lot of possibilities. There isn’t tahini to make it creamy and rich. There’s just smoky eggplant, unapologetically raw onion, and a modest amount of olive oil. It sounds boring from afar.
So why not change it? Increase the olive oil. Caramelize the onions. Add mashed anchovies. Add lemon zest. Add paprika. Add all the fresh herbs! But I never thought to do any of this. And I should have, right? It’s my literal job to develop recipes.
By definition, develop means “cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate.” In other words, I loved the chocolate-peanut butter cookies my mom made growing up, but I wanted them to be fudgier and less sweet and saltier. I always asked for second helpings of our go-to tomato-saucy brisket, but this year, I wanted to find out what would happen if I braised it in milk instead.
So what makes this recipe the exception? I wish I had a meaningful answer. Something like: Because Anna leaving Romania was the start of my family’s life in America, the start of my life in America, preserving the way she prepared this dish is preserving my ancestors’ memory, my family history, my truest identity.
But it isn’t like that. I just think her eggplant tastes really, really good, exactly as it is.
Even when you try to keep something the same, it changes. When I asked Grandma if she adjusted the recipe at all, she told me, “I try to make it just like she did.” But then, when she started listing the details, there were discrepancies: a green bell pepper when I’ve always used yellow, a pinch of sugar which I had never seen anyone add.
“Just a little!” Grandma explained. “Because eggplants can be bitter.”
Or they used to be. These days, not as much, just like certain cuts of pork used to be fatty but now are lean. Ingredients aren’t the same as they were 130-something years ago. Which means recipes can’t be either.
Of course, this doesn’t explain the green bell pepper morphing into yellow. But I can explain that: my mom. She hates green bell peppers. She also loves Fuchsia Dunlop. (It’ll make sense in a second, I swear.) Fuchsia Dunlop is an English cookbook author who specializes in Chinese cuisine. In 2013, she published a book called Every Grain of Rice that I couldn’t stop cooking from. So I recommended it to my mom and then she couldn’t stop cooking from it.
In Every Grain of Rice, there’s a recipe for Smoky Eggplant With Garlic. Dunlop writes: “The smoky flavor of charred eggplant is the soul of Middle Eastern baba ganoush and it’s also used in this Sichuanese appetizer.” Instead of onion, there are scallions. Instead of olive oil, chili oil. Instead of red wine vinegar, Chinkiang vinegar.
It tastes good. But it also tastes different. Whenever my mom makes eggplant spread nowadays, she makes it like Fuchsia. And just like that, over a century after Anna left Romania, our family’s go-to eggplant recipe is changed.
Or it’s always been changing. I’m a culprit of that, too. If there were one constant between Anna’s version and ours, it’s the lack of a recipe. Until now. This is the first time I’ve ever seen our version written down, so the odds that it’s exactly like Anna made it aren’t just improbable. They’re impossible. Even she didn’t make it the same every time.
So I guess my recipe developing did get in the way after all. I felt the need to document something that was always just a conversation between generations, relatives spoon-feeding each other, asking, “What else does it need? More olive oil? More salt?”
It always needs more olive oil. It always needs more salt. But eventually, there’s a look in the other person’s eyes, whether they’re my grandmother’s or my mother’s or my own, a look that says, "Yes. Yes, that’s it! That’s what I remember."
| 1 | large eggplant |
| 1 | yellow bell pepper |
| 1/2 | small yellow onion, minced (plus more if you're into onion, like me) |
| 2 | garlic cloves, minced into oblivion |
| 2 | tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to taste |
| 1 | tablespoon red wine vinegar, plus more to taste |
| 1 | pinch salt, plus more to taste |
| 1 | large eggplant |
| 1 | yellow bell pepper |
| 1/2 | small yellow onion, minced (plus more if you're into onion, like me) |
| 2 | garlic cloves, minced into oblivion |
| 2 | tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to taste |
| 1 | tablespoon red wine vinegar, plus more to taste |
| 1 | pinch salt, plus more to taste |
On our new weekly podcast, two friends separated by the Atlantic take questions and compare notes on everything from charcuterie trends to scone etiquette.
Listen Now
Written by: Emma Laperruque
Popular on Food52
113 Comments
Today is Saturday and I prepared an Eggplant dish.
The word Putlagel entered our conversation. Which led to researching.
I adored Grandma Lizzie Schumer. Always a twinkle and full of joy. The family came to Castle Garden Port of Entry in the Late 1800’s.
Blackout Cake was my Birthday treat.
The family dispersed throughout NY, then beyond.
My mother made this dish the same way and called it pot-la-gel-ee (with an e sound at the end) - and served with crackers as a dip. She said it was from Romania. Her father, my maternal grandfather, came over in the early 20th C via Ellis Island - and from a "shtetl" outside Iasi in the Moldova region. (I see on google maps that Podu Iloaiei is also outside Iasi and incorporates a number of villages.)
Anyway, I was googling the name too because I was looking at a recipe for "babaganoush" which is similar but from the middle east and incorporates tahini. I wondered if anyone else made it more the way you describe and by this name, instead.
Really a delight to find this page! Thanks to everyone for sharing.
I must admit that I like feeling the connection to our mothers and grandmothers as I sit and chop. I have the family chopping bowl and chopper.
Firstly, I would like to thank you for reading and the kind comments you made regarding my post.
And, of course, you are absolutely correct in that the differences are not important when compared to the things that we have in common culturely and traditionally. When you mentioned that you saved the chopping bowl and chopper it actually brought a tear to my eye.
As I mentioned in my post, I really do vividly remember coming home from school for lunch, smelling the eggplant and fried green pepper and watching my mom chopping the potla for forshpize (Yiddish for appetizer) for dinner. I guess I was too young when my folks sold their home for an apartment (I came along late in my parents life) and got rid of many things and didn’t realize some things should be saved.
Anyway, thanks again for your comments on my post.
Yours truly
Syd Cohen
Hi there! My mane is Syd Cohen. I am 75 years old and I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I just finished reading your “potla” story and was fascinated. I would like to tell you mine.
In 1899, 1900 or 1901(not sure) my father, his parents (my paternal grandparents) and somewhere between 7 and 10 more siblings set out for Canada on a large wooden sailing ship from Romania. Upon arrival in Canada (don’t know which city) it appears that only my grandparents, my dad and 2 siblings survived the journey. Ultimately, they were sent to live in the Lipton Colony, a Jewish immigrant settlement in Saskatchewan.
Skip ahead to 1930 when my dad and mom were married and my mom learned various recipes from my dad’s mom, one of which, of course, was “potla jellah”. Which, as you described, is nature’s gift to the human palate. I have come across 2 other Jewish folks with Romanian cultural history who refer to it by the same name as me, so I could only assume that that was the name. I have searched the internet for years looking for the dish with no luck until I found your article. I was delighted to say the least.
I still make it today, true to my mom’s recipe (not written down anywhere of course). I remember, quite vividly, after baking and peeling the eggplant and frying and peeling the green pepper, my mom would sit in the kitchen with a large wooden bowl in her lap and curved stainless steel hand chopper, mincing the 2 cooked veggies into a beautiful, not to smooth, purée. While still a little warm with oil and tons of salt it was like eating ambrosia. It was a long and laborious undertaking those many years ago with no microwave or Cuisinart, but she did it and we truly relished it.
This is how I make it. I microwave a large teardrop shaped eggplant in a shallow Corning-ware 9” x 9” baking dish for 7 to 8 minutes turning it over at halt-time. As soon as I start nuking the eggplant, I start to fry my green pepper. I usually pick a medium sized pepper with 4 distinct sides to facilitate frying. I have a dedicated small no-stick green pepper frying pan because frying whole green pepper is kind of messy and I learned a small dedicated pan is a good idea. I put canola oil in the pan to aid in frying. Using medium heat, fry the pepper whole (lots of splatter) until the entire (roll the pepper until the entire outer skin is well, well done. You’ll have to stand the pepper on the top and bottom and maybe have to hold each with tongs to get them fried.
When nuking is finished, I cut off the top and I peel the eggplant (a job). Watch out, it’s darn hot. I’ve found that using a narrow, long-blade paring knife and an oven mitt works best. Once peeled, I slice the eggplant lengthwise into thirds and let it drain and cool in the dish. Now I get back to the green pepper. Once it’s fried all around and top and bottom, i drop the pepper into a bowl of cold water. Cut out the top crown/core and seeds and discard. The pepper’s flesh should be soft so you can pull the pepper apart into 5 or 6 pieces. Under running cold water, peel off the burnt skin from each piece and let the pieces cool on a paper towel.
When everything is peeled and a bit cooler, I start processing. With the blade going, I feed the green pepper into the processor first then start feeding in strips of the eggplant. Not too much or too fast. When everything is in the processor, process mixture to a desired consistency and you’re essentially done. I process mine until it’s fairly smooth and empty it into a clean, dry glass bowl. If I think I’ve processed it too much (might seem a little too flowy), I “rolling pin” some soda crackers (10 to 14) in a plastic bag until somewhat fine and gradually ad to mix, mixing the crumbs n with a fork. You’ll get the hang of it after 1 or 2 “potlas. Chill in fridge for a couple of hours. And there you have it.
Olive oil and lots of kosher salt!!! You really should read all the notes from all the folks. The stories are oh-so-similar...so interesting.
Joan Lev
Joan
So thank you for making it available to all of us.
Syd
Syd
This dip was known in our family as eggplant dip. I can’t even tell you how many recipes of eggplant dip I’ve read, they all add a crazy amount of ingredients! This is by far the closest and I can’t wait to try it out. My family swears that she only used vinegar, salt and pepper to her dip. I have made it that way, and it doesn’t taste anything like hers. Thank you so much for posting this! I should have used the “Jewish grandmother eggplant dip” for better results!
seem to agree it is just great. Just do not add any black pepper or, green pepper for that matter!!
Join The Conversation