Did anyone else ever hear of yoxamosh? It was something my mother and her mother used to make, but I never thought to ask where they heard of it. As a kid it was one of my favorites. Definitely comfort food.
Anyway, my mother and grandmother came from Illinois and Wisconsin, so now I’m wondering where they might have gotten this recipe, and more importantly, the word yoxamosh from. Is it a regionalism? The word doesn’t bear any suggestion of having come from German, Swedish, or Polish, which were the three main immigrant languages of the area.
So are there any other former yoxamoshvores out there?
My father made that, but I never bothered to find out just where “yoxamosh” came from, or even how it was spelled. I’ll do a little family digging tonight (out in the back forty, of course) and see what I can find.
FWIW, he was raised in Chicago and is of Polish extraction.
Actually, that sounds exactly like the Polish phrase “Jak sie masz?” which means “How are you?” Maybe it was a tasty treat for guests to sit down to. “How are you? Have a seat, grab a plate, dig in.” I’m betting it’s Polish in origin, but beyond this one little supposition I don’t have anything to back that claim up.
You know, that’s probably exactly what I was thinking. The phrase rang an immediate bell, and the food sounded familiar, and they just naturally associated.