–Sixth in a series–
By Donald H. Harrison
CALICO GHOST TOWN, California – A few short miles north of Barstow on Interstate 15 stands the revived Calico Ghost Town, presented by the County of San Bernardino as an insight into its mining past. Wooden sidewalks take visitors past late 19th century stores and mining establishments, and every so often re-enactors will stage a shootout in the middle of the street. The place feels like a movie set come alive.
My grandson Shor and I visited the ghost town in over 100-degree heat, and were very glad that the re-creation of Calico includes something that none of the pioneers ever enjoyed during the town’s 1881-1896 boom time: modern air conditioning. The cool interiors drew us inside and inexorably closer to the counters where all kinds of goods, both fanciful and historic, were for sale.
Merchandise catching the attention of Shor, 13, included western apparel such as cowboy hats, belts, vests and jackets, and various gems and fossils. I was particularly attracted to a general store, where these kinds of items as well as other “dry goods” were sold along with various food stuffs from behind a pair of counters that faced each other and ran the length of the store.
Such a layout, it seemed to me, was very similar to the look of stores operated by 19th and early 20th century Jewish merchants previously mentioned in this travel series, merchants such as Sigmund Steiner in Escondido, and Louis Wolf in Temecula.
In one of the Calico Ghost Town stores, I noted that many replicas of various western law enforcement badges were six-pointed stars and I wondered why these magen davids were seemingly preferred over the more common five-pointed stars. I learned on Google that others had asked the question before me, and the answer had come back that the points of law enforcement stars vary from five all the way to eight. No one whose answer I read knew of a specific Jewish connection to the six-pointed variety.
As we walked on the wooden sidewalks, I wondered If here was a town where I would be limited to Jewish analogy, or metaphor, but wouldn’t find a specific Jewish story, per se.
Then, drawn by Shor’s interest in all things sweet, we walked into the Calico Sweets Shoppe, which had fudges of many flavors for sale. As Shor hesitated over which variety he wanted – he was, after all, a recently bar mitzvahed boy in a candy store – my eyes scanned the shelves, and there, lo and behold, I found for sale a seasoning that was specifically Jewish, if not necessarily in the best of taste.
“Yiddish ‘Shit’ Method of Cooking” announced the advertisement for this product. And below that, the caption read: “Chef Marla’s great grandmother taught her the Yiddish ‘shit’ method of cooking & it is a method of cooking that Marla still uses today. In Yiddish, ‘shit-arein’ means to cook with intuition, without a recipe by using a little of this and a little of that. Chef Marla is a graduate of the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, New York.”
Turns out Chef Marla is Marla Cohen, the proprietor of Phood on Main restaurant in Riverside, California.
So, with mock horror and a laugh, Shor and I decided to purchase a shaker full of ‘Super Hot Shit,” although I am not at all sure that my wife Nancy would ever consent to use it. It probably will remain on a curio shelf in my home with other tchotchkes.
Still, it just goes to show, ‘there’s a Jewish story everywhere.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com