Another illegitmate kugel championship

There might have been limited competition.

There might have been limited cultural knowledge of what a kugel is.

My village has never seen a bundt pan before.

The locals even had trouble pronouncing the word ´kugel´.

But in my pursuit of kugel championships, I will disregard all of these factors and claim victory in last night’s competition (after my ¨triumph¨in the first annual Malka and Elimelekh Kugelov Kugel-off, this is my second ¨championship¨).

I made a pecan noodle kugel for my host family. I must have scared away the rest of the competition (a bit of a one-party system, if you will).



Because pecans are tough to come by in these parts, I replaced them with granola and continued my path to glory. Other than that, the ingredients were very easy to find. Thanks to the Chinese, egg noodles are available in every tienda (little store, which normally doubles as someone’s house).

Because of the width of my kugel and the excess of margarine, my kugel had the consistency of Kiddush-lunch kugel. I didn’t know how the altitude would affect the baking process, so I cut back a little bit on the liquids.

Trying to explain the concept of kugel is difficult enough in English, so doing it in Spanish was even more difficult. It is such an abstract and subjective term, with so many permutations, that a simple definition in is almost impossible to come by. And when the people don’t know what a kugel is, my favorite explanation of “a kugel is anything that you argue is a kugel” doesn’t work so well.

Because the bundt pan is a mystery to the population, trying to find a golden bundt pan to use as my trophy was not feasible. Instead, my family bought me a cake. They told me it was to thank me for what I have done for them and congratulating me on finishing training. But we all know that it was the trophy for the kugel competition.