Molly Goldberg's Pickle Soup

How a 1955 celebrity cookbook covered all my winter meals

Molly Goldberg is one of those characters that mostly television historians and old Jews talk about. The woman who created and played her, Gertrude Berg, was a television pioneer who doesn’t get enough credit today for helping invent what we call the sitcom, and that was after she had a hugely successful career on the radio. She died in 1966, and although Aviva Kempner made the documentary Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg about her in 2009, Berg’s name hardly ever comes up when people talk about the history of television these days.

Her contribution to soup is possibly the only thing more overlooked. Her 1955 The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook (written by Berg and Myra Waldo and great illustrations by Susanne Suba) is something I picked up at a yard sale a few years ago. I’d seen a few episodes of the CBS show The Goldbergs, which ran from 1949 to 1951, and grabbed the book without even opening it to find out that she wrote it in character, with a very Mrs. Goldberg-sounding note at the start things off:

This is my cookbook. So how did I come to write a cookbook? I had to protect myself, that’s how. To make a long story, I had to. Necessity is the mother of invention, no? So I’m a mother, no? So I wrote a cookbook.

I’m sure there’s a history of the celebrity cookbook out there that shows famous people were putting their recipes out into the world long before Berg, but it’s the oldest one in my collection. To no surprise, the cuisine covered is the sort of stuff that blew up a million Ashkenazi hearts, salty cholesterol bombs like essig fleisch (sweet and sour beef), fish in sour cream, and blintzes. It’s the sort of stuff stereotypical grandmas would force-feed their kids going, “OY, so skinny! You need to eat!” Yet the soup is the main event to me.

The thing about Berg is that basically the entire template for what Americans believed was the stereotypical American Jewish mother was created by her. Philip Roth and Woody Allen basically took Berg’s creation and made grotesques. The original was a sweet, warm, and humble woman who cared about family more than anything, but was still a griner, a person with a foot still in the ways and ideas of old country.

Soup in America is very refined. But when I was a girl, soup was for every day and not just for company or was it the kind of day for soup? People ate soup because it was the cheapest way to feed the most people on the least food. Nowadays soup is a special dish and it’s not such a necessity, but sometimes when the budget is low it’s a good thing to remember.

70 years later, with costs so high and the temperatures low, it’s actually a great thing to remember, so I started playing around with some of the Molly Goldberg recipes, and the first one I wanted to try was the pickle soup. It has everything I like in it, but just the idea of pickle soup sounds like some wacky invention a child would come up with.

Pickle soup immediately went on the list of soups I can only make when Emily is out of town, joining borscht, sauerkraut soup (both of which Molly Goldberg has recipes for) and the Russian savory fish soup from Darra Goldstein’s Beyond the North Wind: Russia in Recipes and Lore. I generally tend to keep my strong soup making to myself and stick to mostly Eastern European recipes because of their familiarity, but also know where I can go to find those soups if I’m craving them and don’t want to bother cooking. Pickle soup, sadly, hasn’t caught on much in the 21st century. That fact boggles my mind a little, given how we live in a golden era of pickled and fermented foods. You’d think there’d be more places saying they serve the best pickle soup in town, but I believe it’s just a simple case of branding. Even I first thought it was just a bunch of pickle bits floating around in broth when I saw the name, but then I remembered the cookbook came out in 1955. It’s called pickle soup simply because of the pickles in it, but it’s not gherkin overkill, either. It’s a vegetarian dish that calls for 7 cups of water, but I decided to cut that with chicken broth, and even considered doing a beef version but haven’t gotten that far yet. The recipe also calls for “kosher-style pickles,” which could mean anything, so I was a little unsure if I wanted something with a lot of flavor, or if I’d have an excuse to use those half-sours I’ve always got on hand in case I know somebody who is into that sort of thing and they’re visiting. I decided to go with good old-fashioned dill pickles since the recipe doesn’t call for me to use the herb. Since I had some on hand, I tossed a little pinch into the soup for the hell of it, then gave a quick squeeze of lemon. Also tossed some fresh mushrooms I had on hand in there for added flavor and texture, and then I was eating like a Goldberg.

Molly Goldberg’s Pickle Soup

• 5 dried mushrooms (I went with porcini)

• 7 cups of water (I did 3 cups of water and 4 cups of homemade chicken stock)

• 2 onions, chopped

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 1 carrot, sliced

• 1 bay leaf

• 3 potatoes, peeled and diced (I used 10 red potatoes)

• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (I used more. Like…much more)

• 2 kosher-style pickles, diced

• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Soak the mushrooms in water to cover for 1 hour. Drain well.

Place them in a saucepan with the 7 cups of water, onions, garlic, carrot, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Cook and cover over low heat for 1 hour. Discard the bay leaf. Force the mixture through a sieve. Add the potatoes, salt, pepper, and pickles. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes, adding a little water if the soup is too thick. Correct seasoning. Add parsley and serve.

(Note: I added some fresh Cremini mushrooms in the last 15 minutes. When I had leftovers the next day, I also added in a little duck bacon. That was ridiculous of me, but I regret nothing.)