Rich Noodle Pudding Baked with Fresh Plums and Nectarines

Nabokov, in his brilliant literary study Nikolai Gogol, was describing the Russian notion of poshlust in the excerpt on the following page, but he could just as easily have been writing about the Yiddish ongepotchkeh. Often translated as “overdone,” “gaudy,” or “excessively fussy” (possibly from potchkeh, “to fuss with”), ongepotchkeh is what happens when those desperately seeking elegance collide with their own innate bad taste.

My all-time favorite Yiddish word—just