Emma Goldman's Cheese Blintz Recipe

Having been starved for so many years, he now ate ravenously. It was extraordinary what an amount of food he could absorb, especially of his favourite Jewish dishes, of which he had been deprived so long. It was nothing at all for him to follow up a substantial meal with a dozen blintzes (a kind of Yiddish pancake containing cheese or meat) or a huge apple pie. I cooked and baked, happy in his enjoyment of the food. Most of my friends were in the habit of paying court to my culinary art, but no one ever did so much justice to it as my poor, famished Sasha. - Emma Goldman, Living My Life

"I wish you were here for I am making Blintzes"... - Emma Goldman to Alexander Berkman’s companion, Emmy Eckstein, Aug. 28, 1934.

Ingredients

3 eggs
1¾ cups flour
2 pounds or 4 cups of cheese, preferably pot cheese but Farmer’s cheese or dry cottage cheese may be more easily available
3 cups water
Butter
1 tablespoon sugar

The Blattlach (Crepes)

They are the principal thing; they must be as fine as tissue paper. You beat up two eggs and add three cups of water, then add flour, sifted, to make the mixture as thin as you would for fannekuchen (pancakes), very, very thin. For best results, strain the batter through a sieve to remove lumps, then refrigerate, covered, for two hours. Then make your frying pan hot, wipe it thoroughly with butter, and pour in enough of the mixture to cover the pan thinly. Use about two tablespoons of batter, tilting the pan to coat the surface thinly and evenly. Then when it gets yellow, turn it over on a cloth. Make all your blätter (crepes) like this.

The Filling

The cheese is prepared with an egg and sugar.

Assemble and Fry

Small pieces of the cheese mixture are wrapped in the blätter. Then fry until brown.

Enjoy!

The Emma Goldman Papers
University of California
2241 Channing Way
Berkeley, CA 94720-6030
Phone Number: (510) 642-4708