Yiddish food lessons

Millie's Yiddish Lessons
Video blog by an octogenarian with short cooking-related Yiddish lessons. Charming, even if she can't always remember the right words for things.

I feel like I should correct her all the way. This reminds me of the Yiddish Class I was going to take at our Temple. The instructor was using a translation book to teach phrases. Needless to say I only took one class.

A chicken is a flagel and of course matzo balls are kneidlach and those aren't chicken legs but chicken feet. Sunset had them at the holidays.
Paulette

paulette wrote:A chicken is a flagel

Zayt moykhl, Paulette. I'm far from fluent, but I believe der flagel or fligl is only the wing. A whole chicken is a hun or hendl.

However, being a language without a country, Yiddish has several dialects and tends to borrow words from the languages of the nations its speakers find themselves in. "Chicken" seems to have been widely adopted by Yiddish-speaking immigrants to the United States by the early 20th century.

In 1922, Yiddish-theater composer Rubin Doctor wrote the following song:

Chicken

Ikh veys fun a guter zakh
Vus iz gut far ale glakh
A chicken, oy, oy a chicken.
Geyt ir af a simkhe, a bris
Est nor nit kayn fleysh, kayn fish
Est chicken, est nor a chicken.
Keyn mol vet ir zikh baklugn
Dreyn vet aykh nit der mugn
Un baym hartsn vet aykh keyn mul drikn.
Libe mentshn, folk mayn fraynt
Vilt ir zayn gezint un fayn
Est chicken, est nor a chicken.

REFREN
Chicken, oy est a chicken
S'iz a maykhl vus vet aykh derkvikn
A pulke, a fis a shtikl beylik
S'iz geshmak dos yeder kheylik
Chicken, oy est a chicken.

English lyrics

The klezmer band Kapelye performs a version of it.