Crembo
- To Israelis of a certain age, crembo means cooling weather, rain, and going to the macolet by yourself to buy a foil-wrapped ball of chocolate-covered fluff.
- In the summer, pocket money went for artikim (ice cream on a stick) or kartiv (popsicles) or, if you had a little extra change, cassata.
- Before widespread air conditioning, crembo had to wait for winter, or be transported in rare refrigerated trucks. On the counter of the local grocery store, the chocolate coating would melt. Even today, once out of the air conditioned supermarket or candy store, the chocolate would quickly squish over fingers. What do crembo factories make in the summer?
- The internal fluff now comes in strawberry, chocolate, and mocha as well as the original white, but crembo still waits for November and grows scarce towards the end of February, when hamentashen appear.
- From November through December, crembo shares counter space with soufganiot (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/soufganiot.html ), trucked in from bakeries and displayed open to the air beside the foil-wrapped winter treats.
Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox
Labels: food, rain, seasonal treats, winter
posted by Jane S.Fox at 2:10 PM
1 Comments:
Krembo, at least the wrappers used a K in the 80s, got me out of guard duty on several occasions. We were in Lebanon, in the mountains and by the time the Shekem (IDF PX) truck got to us, all he had were Krembos and shaving cream. We'd buy cases of the Krembos (think a Malomar on steroids)and use them as currency in games of Whist. One night we decided whoever could eat the most, didn't do gurad duty for a week. 35 or 40 later and I won, though for a day or so the voctory was Pyrhhic at best. Krembos were my second favorite idiosynchratic Israel food. The first would have to be (1979 we're talking) the multicolored - multiflavored soft ice cream around the central bus station in Jerusalem. The colors had no bearing on the flavors and the ice cream didn't melt no matter how hot it was. My firm belief is that it wasn't dairy or parve, but rather petro-chemical.
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