Florence Kahn, Yiddish mamma

The story is romantic. At the age of 12, Florence falls in love with Sacha in a colony of Berck-sur-Mer. The two children lose sight of each other after the holidays. Twelve years later, Florence Kahn pushes the door of the caterer pastry chef Finkelsztajn, rue des Rosiers in Paris, to treat herself to a cheese turnover. She recognizes Sacha – her Sacha – who is none other than the shop owner’s son. The young people immediately fall in love again and marry. Florence is hired in her father-in-law’s shop and learns there the cult of good products and the art of hospitality.

When the blue shop » next door was put up for sale in 1988, Florence did not hesitate for a second and bought it. She wants to fly on her own. The boss, a certain Mr. Perelman, only sold his customers bread and three or four varieties of cakes. The first steps are complicated: “I found myself at the head of a shop with male staff who had thirty years of experience and quite a few ingrained habits: the cakes were prepared several days in advance and you could only get them for certain days of the week. »

If she does not master the mysteries of the trade, Florence is overflowing with ideas : “I managed to impose the production of cakes every day and to stop selling to restaurateurs who were delivered daily. My intuition told me that I had to focus on the private clientele. » Among the changes it drives, the appearance of savory dishes. The success is dazzling. The narrow little shop where the big red boxes of unleavened bread are piled up is always full.

The caterer and its pretty blue mosaic facade.

“Even if I have reduced the sails a bit with the Covid epidemic, fifteen employees work in the shop”, she explains proudly. Over time, this welcoming counter with its superb facade in blue mosaic, classified as a Historic Monument, which has nothing to envy to the good old delicatessen New Yorkers, becomes a piece of Ashkenazi culture in France and one of the addresses of the Pletzl – the small square in Yiddish – where tourists from all over the world flock.

memory and identity

One Polish and the other Lithuanian, Florence Kahn’s grandparents arrived in France in 1904, fleeing the pogroms. Florence grew up in the 20e district of Paris in an environment where religion has no place. Jewish culture spreads in his family through music and food. This Ashkenazi gastronomy, she never ceases to discover all the nuances and riches. Due to the diaspora, it merges with the culinary customs and local products of each country.

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