There’s a word in Yiddish, kvatch, which means junk or crap or stuff, something like that. It is used in my family in a specific way.
My great-grandmother used to refer to the inside of a roll as kvatch. She would remove the bready insides before making a sandwich. She was my mother’s favorite grandmother and something like her lifeline, and so her tradition was sustained with much affection.
This is actually a cool trick. If you have a nice round roll, like a Kaiser roll or an onion roll (my favorite), and you’re making a sandwich, the hollow area you make on top by removing the kvatch is a convenient place to put the cole slaw or lettuce so that it doesn’t flop out of the sides. Tuna stays within its bready confines. Pickle slices don’t shoot across the room.
Anyway. One time we’re all at Mom’s house, all adults. Meaning my kid brother, Dan, is also an adult and we’re visiting for whatever reason, and I’m making sandwiches for some of us including kid brother and Dan says “Could you kvatch the bread?”
Perfect.
There’s another Yiddish word, spotsir (or shpotsir or shpotsirn) which means stroll or walk. My old boss used to say “I’m going for a spotsir.” (It’s not a word I ever heard my mother say, although she knows it.) One day I said I was spotsing, which was a pretty good one as well.
So evil of me, to complain about Gumbel’s mangled English but applaud my mangled Yiddish. Consistency is not a hobgoblin that plagues me!
