Metz Matzo Kugel

Agar Lippmann, age eighty-two, is a living encyclopedia of Alsatian Jewish food. Born Agar Lippmann in a little town near Colmar, and raised in Bollwiller, she married another Lippmann (no kin) and moved to Lyon during World War II. When her son Henri opened a kosher catering company there almost thirty years ago, she started out helping in the kitchen, and has been helping him ever since. Now, using local chefs—some Jewish and some not—the two cater kosher events all over Lyon and as far away as Besançon, bringing their kosher pots and pans and sometimes portable ovens. For Passover they take over a hotel in nearby Aix-les-Bains, where French Jews can have their Seder while enjoying the baths. Today most of the Lippmanns’ cooking is North African and modern French. Only for the holidays do they make traditional Alsatian and Ashkenazic food for their clients. “At holidays, people come back to their roots,” she told me in her catering office, just steps away from the Grande Synagogue. Recipes like this savory matzo kugel predate noodle kugels in general, and certainly the noodle kugels we eat in America today. Although the original recipe called for veal fat, I substitute melted butter or vegetable oil.