Mrs Elswood's little secret

This is a story of two imaginary women. Mrs Adler and Mrs Elswood. 

 Mrs Adler is from the U.S, and supposedly Mrs Elswood from the UK. The picture on the front of the Mrs Adler jar shows a sour-faced woman with the slightest of smiles – more a sneer.

She has just been to the hairdresser’s, put on her pearl necklace and horn-rimmed glasses, and it is difficult to see her as the type of person who would be, as my mother was, arm deep in fish, egg, onion, and matzo meal as she wielded her hackmesser to create “chopped and boiled” or “chopped and fried” – or in other words – home-made gefilte fish.

 I understand where Mrs Adler is coming from. She is bitter as hell at being sidelined by Manischewitz, who have their own jars of gefilte fish.

 One of the latter owners of Manishewitz stated “Many years ago it started as Eastern European, Ashkenazi cooking, but Manischewitz is no longer just that. It’s also anything good that is kosher.” Little wonder that Mrs Adler can hardly suppress a scowl, and the best way to serve Mrs Adler’s fish is chilled (like Mrs Adler)

On the other hand, there is Mrs Elswood, purveyor of certified kosher pickled cucumbers. Indeed, one of her products is Haimisha Pickled Cucumbers. They are her speciality, although she has diversified into other types of Pickled Cucumbers

However, for a Jewish girl she has completely broken the glass ceiling of grocery. Not confined to the boundaries of Golders Green, she is found from Waitrose to Budgens, from Sainsbury’s to Asda, and not just on the kosher aisle of those supermarkets. She is clearly the best of breed,.Other brands pale in comparison.

 

She is the preferred cucumber at Pesach, and indeed at simchas (e.g. weddings, barmitzvahs)  or kiddushim (post service nibbles and you can tell from the picture on the jar. 

Instead of the sour Mrs Adler with her horn-rimmed glasses and pearl necklace, a young, fresh face beams out at you from the jar. She has been described in a blog as a young Kate Bush.

 However, she hides a secret. She is not British. She's not even Jewish. 

 Mrs Elswood Pickles, according to their owners, are not made in the UK. They are harvested, pickled and packed once a year in Germany and Holland direct from the grower.

 The brand began as Marela, owned by a Mr Solomons in the Isle of Dogs, and later became a very small part of the W. Grace conglomerate around 1968.

 It was then sold to Pearce Duff Custard, which traded with the Middle East, and therefore needed to break with the company’s connection with the Jewish market.

 Interestingly, Pearce Duff are still going, except that their product, owned by Kerry Foods of Surrey, is now limited to blancmange. They sell 700,000 units a year and are worth £0.5 million (blancmange is a wobbly, vaguely milky jellified pudding, which used to be regarded as only suitable for the sick and infirm).

 Dennis Mendel had been at Marela, as had Sam Goldman, and together with Joe Rubin, they formed their own company. The company was called Elswood, as Mendel and Rubin came from Elstree, and Goldman from St Johns Wood.

 As well as manufacturing products they imported goods such as Elite Chocolate and Telma products; indeed, Elswood was never just a pickled cucumber brand. There were herrings, horseradish and other lines. Products were manufactured by specialists in the countries with the expertise – cucumbers in Holland and herrings in Sweden.

Joe Rubin had the bright idea of creating a person for the customers to identify with. They had a photoshoot, a very pretty girl came along from an agency and Mrs Elswood was born.

 In 2005 Sam Goldman sold the brand to Empire Food Brokers, whose managing director is Chandresh Patel. “Empire Foods are one of the UK's major fine food distributors and importers, and also sell such products as Thai Taste, Malay Taste and Nem Viet”.

Despite her 'conversion' Mrs Elswood remains a uniquely Jewish product in a non-Jewish world.

 

 

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These books are available from Amazon:

Kosher Foxtrot
Jews and the Sea
The Definitive Guide to Jewish Miscellany and Trivia