The Healing Power of Bagel and Schmear

When my dad was diagnosed with lymphoma last year, I turned to the Jewish tradition of appetizing foods for comfort.

- Jennifer Goldberg

"I'VE GOT THE BAGELS; YOU BRING THE SCHMEAR."

My mother is calling from the hospital to tell me that Dad's chemo treatment didn't work. His lymphoma will continue to progress. He might have years still left with us, or he might have months. In the meantime, we've got to figure out the logistics of moving him from the hospital back to the house he's lived in for 39 years. The house where he raised my sister and me.

As Mom delivers the bad news, the conversation naturally turns to food. It always does with our family. What should we eat when we get together to discuss next steps? The answer when things get hard is usually bagels and the stuff you "schmear" on them, such as cream cheese, smoked fish and egg salad. Maybe served along with a little babka (a chocolate-filled braided bread) or a cheese blintz-foods that are otherwise known as Jewish "appetizing." Yes, that's appetizing as a noun.

When you think of Ashkenazi Jewish comfort foods, matzo ball soup, latkes or pastrami on rye might come to mind. But milestones in my family are more often marked with chewy bagels, heaping bowls of salty tuna and smoked whitefish salad, and a platter of tender smoked salmon, or "lox," a food my mother once compared to actual gold.