In memory of Lucie and Eugen Scheuer
What do we keep in our box of childhood memories from Grandma’s house, and what do we remember particularly fondly? The food, of course. After emigrating from Germany in 1936, Lucie Scheuer, her husband Eugen, and their adult children Ruth, Hannah, and Herbert, moved into the front-facing apartment on the third floor of the Liebling House. They sold their property in Germany, arriving in Tel Aviv as a wealthy family. Eugen, a flour trader in Germany, briefly worked here as a moneylender. Lucie was a housewife who never learned proper Hebrew. They lived in the house from 1938 to 1971 and were the last residents who remained there before the municipality relocated some of its offices to the building, per Tony Liebling’s will.
Thanks to Shula Widrich’s research, we were able to meet members of the family, some recalled stories of their childhood home. They also shared the Koch Buch, a recipe book Lucie Scheuer had prepared for her daughter Hannah in 1940, which has since become part of the family legacy, passed from generation to generation. Mrs. Scheuer’s original kitchen has been carefully preserved, and you can visit it during a tour of the Liebling Haus, and listen to the stories on the Liebling Haus Audio app.
As part of the conservation project, we’ve decided to extend our reach into the realms of culinary memory, and recreate two of Lucie’s recipes at the Lieb Cafe on the ground floor: Linzer torte, or Linzer Cake, as she referred to it in her book, and an apple cake. You’re welcome to come by, have a bite, and discover that these pastries hardly fall short of any of today’s sophisticated desserts.
With its Jewish-German phrases and traditional illustrations, the book is a valuable example of cultural, family, and collective history. In a time of numerous cooking shows and excessive discussion of gourmet food and celebrity chefs, browsing it brings back a heartwarming feeling of nostalgia mixed with practical corporeality. The concise, practical tone, the frugal ingredients, and the brief instructions reframe the task of food preparation in its former context: feeding a family.
Here are two recipes from Lucie Scheuer’s Koch Buch:
