Hunger, the proverbial wolf at the door, is a universal experience. Eating may keep the beast at bay but it doesn’t tame it; calories alone can nourish the body, but not the mind and soul. For many with PTSD, including Holocaust survivors, food can be an incomplete escape into a more stable life. In How to Share an Egg—a narrative that interweaves the author’s own story with that of her Holocaust-survivor father, Saul — Bonny Reichert explores how identity and trauma can be preserved and transmuted across generations. Saul’s memories of suffering and sustenance feed Reichert’s hunger for understanding, tikkun (repair), and healing.
This book begins in 1945 with Saul on the brink of starvation after his recent liberation from the Flossenbürg concentration camp (preceded by imprisonment in the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Sachsenhausen). This moment anchors the intergenerational trauma that Bonny explores throughout this book. Although her childhood in Edmonton, Canada could be described as genial, that would deny the profound darkness that she struggles with.
Through her forties, Reichert finds it difficult to talk to her parents about the Holocaust … as well also her own needs and emotions. After finishing culinary school, she starts working as a food writer and finds a way to tap into her own voice and confidence as she shares stories about what food means to people. Finally giving in to the wolf howling at her door, Reichert decides to cook cholent for the first time. Cholent is one of Saul’s favorite childhood dishes, and he hasn’t tasted it since before the war. Reichert is surprised at how quickly a bite of this stew unlocks her dad’s memory, inspiring him to share more about his childhood and dishes he has never spoken to her about. Preparing these dishes begins a slow, cathartic therapeutic process that alleviates the burdens that both Bonny and Saul have been carrying alone for far too long.
How to Share an Egg is a journey of survival and self-empowerment. It is a memoir that explores how understanding potatoes and borscht (and yourself!) can heal intergenerational trauma.
Avery Robinson is a Jewish nonprofit professional living in Brooklyn. In his spare time, he freelances as an editor, culinary historian, cofounder of the climate change nonprofit Rye Revival, and manager of Black Rooster Foods. His writings have appeared in Marginalia Review of Books, Jerusalem Post, TabletMag, and The Forward.
