Chicken soup a la Golda Meir

The secret’s out, for every Yiddishe Moma to follow: Former prime minister Golda Meir’s chicken soup recipe, entered as a document in English by the national archives more than 30 years ago, was released to the public on Tuesday.

Golda Meir’s chicken soup recipe (photo credit: National Archives)

The typed one-page recipe — which calls for chicken, parsley, celery, carrots, onions, a pinch of paprika, salt and pepper — appears on a page of what appears to be Foreign Ministry-headed paper and looks as if it’s marked as secret, bearing the stamp “Incoming cable, classified.”

But the light-hearted National Archives blog on which it was uploaded assures readers this is “an optical illusion,” created when the recipe was photocopied on top of other, unrelated, documents.

To date the only female prime minister in Israel’s history, Meir resigned from office following the Yom Kippur war in 1973. The Ukranian-born, Milwaukee-raised politician had hosted members of her government at home in a forum that was known as “Golda’s kitchen,” and even cooked for them herself, earning a reputation for fine gefilte fish and strong Turkish coffee.

The newly released page notes that “Mrs. Meir generally serves soup with Kneidlach (Matzo balls),” and provides her instructions for preparing the traditional Passover dumplings.

Kindly, the prime ministerial cook tells us that if we like rice, we can add that too, after straining the soup. Now eat up!