My mother doesn’t tell too many stories about her childhood. She’s a survivor and it pains her to remember a world that was so tragically destroyed but last week she told me about how her mother, who died in Aushwitz, sent a can of sardines across a hostile border so that her father ( my mother’s grandfather and my great grandfather) could eat it at Shalosh Seudos, the third Shabbos meal .

My mother and her mother (my grandmother) lived in Satmar in Rumania. The rest of the family-aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents lived across the border 10 miles in Hungary. During the interwar years, Hungary and Rumania were mortal enemies and the border was often sealed shut. Visiting was nearly impossible.

But there was a jitney the occassionally crossed the border, probably illegally. My grandmother traveled to the jitney’s stop carrying her gift to her father, a Rabbinical Court Judge and Torah Scholar. Since Hungary is landlocked my especially treasured this gift of fish the favorite food of Jewish mystics, which connotes the Leviathan, the big fish that the righteous will eat at the end of days.

Anyway, this story made me hungry for sardines. This recipe is my mother’s. I can’t say for sure that this was the way my great grandfather ate his sardines.I doubt that he had avocado to stuff them into but this is a yummy dish. By the way, if you don’t like sardines, you can substitute tuna. It’s just as good!.

1 can of sardines drained. Remove skin and bones

Add juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tablespoon chopped onion

1 tablespoon mayonaisse

1 hard boiled egg

Mash together and serve stuffed into an avocado. Delicious and nutritious as sardines are loaded with Vitamins, B12, D and also Omega 3.