By Eric Wolf Schoen
Labor Day is here and with it comes the end of another summer. Summer is my favorite time of year as we would spend time as a family swimming, barbecuing, playing sports and having a grand old time enjoying the weather.
As I discussed in a previous column, the last week of summer through Labor Day my family would spend at the one of the big hotels in the Catskills Mountains aka Borscht Belt, a place where many Jews would go for entertainment and relaxation as they were not welcome in the early part of the century at hotels that catered to non-Jews. If you saw the movie Dirty Dancin’ you Know what I am talking about. Dad and I would play paddleball and handball while mom and my sister would watch makeup displays and work so very hard at trivia games to win a little bottle of champagne to drink with dinner.
Around 5:30 p.m. mom, dad, my sister and I would go to our room and shower up and prepare for the evening. Dad liked to bake in the sun, not realizing how bad it was for his skin. He would be the last one to shower and change for dinner.
The hotels whether it be the Concord, Grossingers, Nevele, Browns, or Brickman, our hotel of choice were known not only for extensive activity schedules but also for their delectable cuisine. The day would start off at 6:30 a.m. with Golfers Breakfast, coffee and little pastries for those headed out for an early tee time.
Seated breakfast would start around 8:30 depending on the hotel and finish up at 10 a.m. or 10:30.
The meal would start with a big plate of danish and crumb cakes to enjoy while you selected your morning choices. Just in case you would get hungry later, your waiter would bring you napkins to fill with danish to take out of the dining room, also know as ‘Filata’ danish (for later danish.) Appetizers available everyday included herring, pickled salmon and a host of other fishes including Nova Scotia Salmon which you would put on a toasted bagel with onions, lettuce and tomatoes and capers.
Mind you this was all you can eat. You want 5 bagels you could have 5 bagels or 10 danish you could indulge. 13 varieties of Cold cereal would be served as well as 3 hot cereals. I liked my oatmeal with a touch of sugar piping hot even on the warmest day. Five varieties of eggs were served with Baco Chips, little chips that taste like bacon but were not as the dining room was kosher. Pancakes, French Toast and Cinnamon Sugar toast accompanied beverages such a postum, a powdered roasted grain beverage popular as a coffee substitute. The caffeine-free beverage was created by Post Cereal Company founder C. W. Post in 1895 and marketed as a healthier alternative to coffee. Sanka, also caffeine free was another popular beverage but people still liked their coffee.
You could imagine how filling that breakfast was and until the mid-70’s, early 80’s, a dairy, lunch would be served following breakfast at 1:00 p.m. The dairy lunch would features blintzes, crepes filled with cheese and fruit toppings, fish prepared numerous ways and other non-meat dishes. Hotel operators got smart and cut out the dairy lunch so patrons would not have to run to the dining room from the pool or tennis court or interrupt their day. Let’s face it, after that big breakfast finishing at 10:30 a.m. was there a need for a whole other meal 2 1/2 hours later.? It gave the staff a nice break too, and guests could relax and enjoy all the facilities the hotels had to offer.
Let’s not forget that most patrons had their little napkins filled with ‘filata’ danish and if that didn’t cut the gefilte fish most of the hotels had coffee shops. No one truly was starving.
After a long day of play and entertainment, 6:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m. brought on dinner. The dinner meal was for the most part meat and in keeping kosher no milk was served. Even the coffee and tea was served with a fake milk, butter was margarine and all the pastries served for dessert contained no milk or milk products.
You were full if you ate just breakfast and dinner but truly stuffed if you added lunch on the menu. Cutting out lunch also enabled hotel operators to lower prices for overnight stays, something no one complained about.
Sadly, all the hotels with these feasts have closed, burned down or were knocked down. You must admit the menu was lavish and extensive, and to this day I wonder how I could have eaten everything on the menu, washed down for breakfast and lunch with a glass of chocolate milk.
So, Labor Day is here. I will always have fond memories of my Catskills hotel experiences. And the food. I truly ‘Ate the Time of My Life.’
Listen to Eric Schoen on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM, go to WVOX.com and click the arrow to listen to the live stream or download the WVOX app from the App Store free of charge. Reach him at thistooisyonkers@aol.com.
