Hoppel Poppel and Making Do Well

Not much, enough. I’d have to think really hard about what I had for lunch last Monday. But there are lunches that stay with me for the rest of my life. On school days, my sister and I would sometimes come home at midday. Getting there was never a casual little walk, which is why we usually took our lunch to school. We lived up on the “mountain”, school was down in town. By the time we reached our door, we were tired and properly hungry. And then the smell from the kitchen made it all worth it. Mutti just called it bratkartoffeln mit eiern. Fried potatoes with eggs. Simple, practical, nothing fancy. But in our house it was never just potatoes and eggs. Most days she used whatever was left from the night before. A bit of roast, some sausage, sometimes even a few vegetables that needed using up. And every so often she would leave out the eggs and stir in leftover gravy instead. I know how that sounds, but it worked. It made everything taste richer. I didn’t know it had a proper name. Not back then. To us it was simply lunch, the kind that filled us up and makes us feel loved. Decades later, I posted something about it on Facebook and someone recognized it immediately. They told me it was called Hoppel Poppel, and that it was a favorite from the area around Berlin. Of course that made sense. Mutti was from there. I couldn't ask her directly about it now, since she's no longer here. I wonder if she knew it by that name. For a long time I assumed the name must be Berliner dialect, something people just said without thinking. Then I learned it might come from an old children’s poem called Pottkieker, which means “the one who peeked into the pot.” In the poem, a child asks his mother what she's cooking, and she replies, “Hoppel, Poppel, Appelreis, mach’ dich fort, Naseweis”, which is basically, “Hoppel poppel, apple rice, get lost, you little know-it-all.” In other words, she is telling the nosy child to get lost. Not very polite, but that kind of nonsense rhyme sticks in the memory. As does the name. And the dish fits the name somehow. It is practical, a little playful, and built out of whatever is on hand. Potatoes, leftovers, a hot pan, and suddenly “not much” turns into “enough.” I think that is the little wisdom tucked into it. The best food comes from paying attention and using what is there. Not wasting. Making do, but making it good. It's a quiet kind of comfort, knowing I can still feed people well without needing a perfect plan. Tschüss!Oma Gerhild P.S. Today's recipe: Hoppel Poppel And yes, Appelreis really is apple rice, a type of rice pudding. I’ll be posting that delicious recipe soon.

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Hoppel Poppel and Making Do Well

Not much, enough.

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