Departure stories Betty Crocker made matzoh balls (and other lies)

Elisa Bernick

Book - 2022

""We weren't religious per se. The most frequent mention of God in our house was my mother yelling 'Goddammit!'" Elisa Bernick grew up "different" (i.e., Jewish) in the white, Christian suburb of New Hope, Minnesota during the 1960s and early 1970s. At the center of her world was her mother, Arlene, who was a foul-mouthed, red-headed, suburban Samson who ultimately shook the walls of their family until it collapsed. Poignant and provocative, Departure Stories peers through the broader lens of Minnesota's recent history to reveal an intergenerational journey through trauma that unraveled the Bernick family and many others. Deftly interweaving reporting, archival material, memoir, jokes, scrapbook ...fragments, personal commentary, and one very special Waikiki Meatballs recipe, Bernick explores how the invisible baggage of place and memory, Minnesota's uniquely antisemitic history, and the cultural shifts of feminism and changing marital expectations contributed to her family's eventual implosion. Departure Stories: Betty Crocker Made Matzoh Balls (and other lies) is a personal exploration of erasure, immigrants, and exiles that examines the ways departures-from places, families and memory-have far-reaching effects"--

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Subjects
Genres
Anecdotes
Biographies
History
Published
Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press [2022]
Language
English
Main Author
Elisa Bernick (author)
Item Description
Contains recipes.
Physical Description
xi, 230 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780253064073
  • Author's Note
  • Part 1. Arrivals
  • The Bernick Family Survival Relay
  • Memory Is a Slippery Fish
  • "The Great Jewish Invasion"
  • Three Jewish Jokes
  • Three Minnesota Jokes
  • A Departure from "Minnesota Nice"
  • A Story Told to Me by Grandpa Izzy
  • Aliens from "Dee Olt Countree"
  • Decamping to the Suburbs
  • Interesting Demographics
  • Emigration to Assimilation
  • The First Coffee Klatch
  • Waikiki Meatballs (Recipe)
  • Arlene Wants Nice Lamps-1965
  • Making a Betty Crocker Break for It
  • Mrs. Minnesota 1964
  • Mrs. Jewish Minnesota 1964
  • Mrs. Samuel Bernick Reaches for the Crown
  • "Husbands of Contestants Wash Dishes"
  • Pageant Night-Mrs. Minnesota 1964
  • Winners and Losers
  • JewishNotChristian
  • Mrs. Swanson-1967
  • Can't Hide from the Weather
  • Cold Snap
  • The Pain Game-1968
  • Sewing (In)Sanity
  • Part 2. Departing from the Story Line
  • Another Jewish Joke
  • (Re)Constructing the Narrative
  • Marriage Go-Round
  • Disclaimer
  • Arlene Goes AWOL-1968
  • Disappearing Act
  • Turn Up the Volume-1968
  • Missing the Strike Zone
  • Exiled to the War Zone-1969
  • The Gestalt Prayer
  • Revolutionaries
  • No Rescue in Sight-1969
  • Terra Incognita
  • The Swinging Tree
  • Stress Fractures
  • Bubble-Speak
  • Grit
  • Out in the Cold
  • Abandon (Verb)
  • Mutation and Adaptation
  • Looking for the Exits
  • Snow Bunny Gets Lost in La La Land
  • Bad with a Capital BS
  • A Real Nightmare
  • Remembering and Forgetting
  • Truth and Lies
  • The Nearest Exit
  • Epilogue: Evolving Story Lines
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix
  • Selective Timeline of the Jews (and My Family) in Minnesota, 1840-1962
  • Selective Timeline of the Jews (and My Family) in the Minneapolis Suburbs of Robbinsdale, Crystal, St Louis Park, and New Hope, 1950-1970
  • Selective Timeline of "the Divorce Revolution," 1960-1975
  • Selective Timeline of the Jews (and My Family) in California, 1945-1973
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • About the Author
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Journalist Bernick (The Family Sabbatical Handbook) delivers a poignant, witty, and often painful chronicle of growing up in a Jewish family in a predominantly Christian suburb of Minneapolis in the 1960s. She and her family were tolerated but certainly not accepted, being treated to a "different perspective of Minnesota's brand of 'nice.' " Bernick draws in the reader with humor and pathos as she recalls running away at age five and riding the bus for hours without really being noticed (until she returned home to a beating and then apology from her apoplectic mother). Her attempts at assimilation, she writes, left her feeling invisible: "Jews. They're a little... different," is how she sums up the midwestern "nuanced antisemitism." Anecdotes follow as she recounts her grandfather's story (in a "Polish/Russian accent") of keeping back the cream when the family's cow's milk was stolen by Nazis, and her mother's determined and defiant run in the Mrs. Minnesota contest. Punctuated with sections such as "Three Jewish Jokes," a brief history of Betty Crocker as a modern woman archetype, and a recipe for Waikiki meatballs (a dish that led her parents to bicker about the price of canned pineapple), Bernick's nimble storytelling has much to love. It's an insightful and spot-on mélange of perfectly preserved stories on place, history, and family. (Oct.)

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Departure 1. the act of leaving a place 2. a variation that deviates from the standard or norm --Merriam-Webster Dictionary The two central definitions of "departure"--leaving and deviating from the norm--aptly describe the history and character of my family, the Jews, and my experience of growing up Jewish in the White Christian Minnesota suburbs. They also describe my mother, whose various departures (from sanity, her marriage, her children, and eventually, Minnesota,) drove the plot line in my family's story. She was, as they say, "a pistol," whose thwarted ambitions include her attempt to become the first Jewish Mrs. Minnesota in 1964. This book is rooted in my family's departure stories examined through the broader lens of Minnesota history. It touches on the state's antisemitism and its unique relationship to "difference." My family was one of only a handful of Jewish families living in the Minneapolis suburb of New Hope during the 1960s and 70s. Among the humorous anecdotes of latkes and lutefisk, you'll find tales of Jews as insider/outsiders--tolerated but not quite welcome. It's a different perspective of Minnesota's particular brand of "Nice." Excerpted from Departure Stories: Betty Crocker Made Matzoh Balls (and Other Lies) by Elisa Bernick All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.