My mother always served Intagashlinganah Borsht at lunch on the second day of Pesach but I never knew why.

It certainly wasn’t to please me.

I mean which kid, especially a non Russian one likes borsht?

Even my husband who is a blessedly non picky eater still complains about how his parents served it at his bar mitzvah dinner instead the steak and chips he craved.

But borsht is part of Jewish life especially at Pesach.

In the old days, borsht making, which involved fermenting beets was up there with cleaning and matzo baking at the core of holiday preparations Back in Eastern Europe food choices were relatively limited. Beets were cheap and available and hence we Jews put them to good use .

Is there a ritual connection between this quintessentially Jewish red root vegetable and the Festival of Freedom?

Not really although customs expert Rabbi Duvid Meisels says that borsht is eaten on the second day of Yuntif in the diaspora as a way of saying that outside of the Holy Land the holiday lacks a measure of sweetness.

I suppose that is why my mother served it in her Intagashlinganah style.

Inta-gah-shling-ga-nah.

Try that five times fast.

Don’t blame me if your tongue ends up up in traction.

In Yiddish this word means braided or woven together referring to the delicate incorporation of the egg whip into the soup .Intagashlingination is a favorite East European Jewish cooking technique used in fruit soups and and also in a dish sent to me by my dear cousin Honey called Intagashlingah Bundelach.

Once you learn to say the word, the soup is a snap to make.

It’s got two ingredients, borsht, (24 oz. or .710 liters) from a jar (it doesn’t have to be Gold’s. This isn’t a paid advertisement. Any brand will do or if you really want to you can make your own borsht) and two eggs, plus a cup of water.

Instructions

Open the jar of borsht. If it’s stuck pour hot water over the lid or call on a neighborhood roughneck or teenaged child to help you.

Pour the contents of the jar into a medium sized saucepan and add one cup of water.

Bring this mixture to the boil-not a roiling boil, just the beginnings of a boil when tiny delicate bubbles circle the rim of the pot.

Now remove the pot from stove.

Whi;p up the eggs until frothy. Don’t do this by hand. Use a mixer. It’s best to whip eggs while the borsht is heating up.

While your eggs are beating themselves think about your grandmother who probably used a hand beater (and may not have had have jarred borsht either)

Now comes the intagashlingination.

Pour the heated borsht into a heat proof measuring cup with a spout and slowly pour it over the beaten eggs while the mixer is running. Keep the stream of borsht thin otherwise the eggs might curdle

Now you are done. Put the borsht in the fridge right away .

Serve very cold .

You can serve it in glasses like a shake or in a shallow soup bowl garnished with a boiled potato wedge and/or a scoop of sour cream.

Do not freeze

Enjoy

Confession. I wanted to add with a photo of a boiled potato wedge sitting like a canoe inside a pink borsht lake but every time I tried to photograph this scene my potato sank. By the time I fished it out it was covered with pink goo and not very pretty.

Fancying myself a food stylist, I inserted toothpicksk to hold it up, but alas, my potato still sank.

I now realize that my problem was that my soup bowl was too deep. For the desired look, I needed a shallower bowl.

With Pesach around the corner, I didn’t have time to rush out and buy supplies so dear reader, please use your imagination. Let me know how it turns out.