When we moved to this area, I was surprised at how "ethnic" it was. Growing up, I don't recall any ethnic foods that were popular due to the local crowd. The only nod to our own heritage was that my mom made Irish soda bread on St. Patrick's Day. And we might have had hot dogs and sauerkraut in the crockpot about once a year. Served over mashed potatoes. I know that sounds bizarre, but I will attest to its fabulousity.
Then I moved here and discovered the large population of Eastern European background. And they REALLY celebrate their heritage. Parades, festivals, church holidays I've never heard of. I'm guessing part of it is that many of them are only second generation Americans, so they haven't lost touch with their roots, like the rest of us.
It took me a few years to realize that Fat Tuesday equals Paczki Day. And I had no idea what a paczki (pronounced "poonch-key" here) even was. Well, it's a jelly doughnut, folks. Not that exotic. Fat Tuesday is then followed up by perogies for Lent. Again, a food item I never heard about till we moved here. They are pasta circles filled with potato and cheese, folded in half and fried up in butter and onions. I've only tried them once and thought they were gross, but everyone else seems to love them.
At Christmas, there are the kolacky (pronounced "kuh-latch-key"), although I've seen various spellings. What is this delicacy, I used to wonder, that everyone talks about? Well, we called them 'jam pockets' when I was a kid. They are a flaky pastry type of cookie, filled with jam. They are good, but I don't get that excited over them. I've heard of people driving miles and miles to get "good kolacky." Or people who spend an entire weekend making hundreds of them for the holidays.
Does your town have a food specialty or did your family have a special food related to your heritage that you often ate?
Well my family heritage is almost entirely New England Yankees and Pennsylvania Deutsch, pre-revolutionary. Jenn is of later-arriving German ancestry, so we've occasionally done Wienerschnitzel, and stuff like that. Honestly, tho, we're just not all that 'ethnic'. We just kinda made up our own holiday food traditions - Chicken Kiev for Christmas (don't ask me why), and a leg of lamb for Easter (and of course, turkey for Thanksgiving)
ReplyDeleteI dated an Italian girl for a while; her mom was an amazing cook; made her own pasta, and sauce from scratch (ie, it started the day as tomatoes).
I grew up in a heavily Polish town Up North, but I never heard of Paczki until I was in college. I think it's a marketing thing with the big-city (Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland) Polish bakeries. I've heard of folks driving from Our Town to Detroit (1.5hr one way) to stand in line another hour for 'authentic' paczkis. That's pretty amazing marketing for, as you say, a glorified jelly donut (altho you can't get prune or apricot jelly donuts any other time of the year)
Funny you mentioned the prune paczkis because I saw those this year and wondered who in the world would purchase those?? I agree that it's a marketing thing!
DeleteWell, you know, those sugary carbs can be so binding. . .
Delete;)
we just chuck a shrimp on the barbie...
ReplyDeleteNot to be ignorant, but is Australia a melting pot as well (lots of nationalities) besides the Aborigines? Or is there a predominant heritage?
Deletewe used to be predominantly of english/irish heritage but now days anything goes - melbourne (where i live) is very multicultural, probably the greek and vietnamese communities are the most visible.
Deleteas for the aboriginies, in the bigger cities you don't see a lot of them - further north though alice springs/ darwin they are much more prevalent.
also did you ever see those paul hogan adds from 15 years ago saying 'throw another shrimp on the barbie???' most aussies thought it was a bizarre way to promote australia to the americans, as no-one here does that.
I vaguely remember those commercials. Most countries are portrayed poorly, when you think about it.
DeleteGreat post, Bijoux! You're making me hungry. My grandmother was from Italy and she used to make lasagna every Christmas. My mother took over after she died. Now that my mom's gone I don't have much desire to eat the stuff, but I do have some great holiday memories!
ReplyDeleteHolidays and food do go hand-in-hand.
Delete"And we might have had hot dogs and sauerkraut in the crockpot about once a year. Served over mashed potatoes. I know that sounds bizarre, but I will attest to its fabulousity."
ReplyDeleteNo, it doesn't sound bizarre at all to me because my family had that for dinner MANY times. And I LOVED it!
Well, being in Philly (the EATING capital of the world), we have so many different types of foods here because of the vast array of heritages - Italian, Irish, German, Jewish, Polish, etc. So you can get practically any type of food here.
Being Italian, all sorts of pasta dishes are very popular. Along with things like, stuffed peppers, fried eggplant, pasta fagioli, and various salads. OMG...I love Italian food! Especially with RED wine!
And it's funny because tonight I made a pasta dish with red sauce and olive oil, grated cheese, and a nice side salad.
I'm glad To hear you've enjoyed the sauerkraut mashed potato dish! I always think of the Philly cheesesteak when I think of Philly. Is it Italian? I've never had one.
DeleteOne side of the family is Scottish, the other side non-descript but I've lived my entire life in the midst of a melting pot community. We've got a lot of everything including perogies, pasta, pizza, Paczki, kolacky, pork and sauerkraut, corned beef and cabbage, roasts, deli, BBQ, greek, and others I'm certainly forgetting. We have each and everyone in restaurants as well, both real and fakes.
ReplyDeleteQueenie has made for us pretty much everything but the Paczki and does as well as the 'authentic' so we don't even have to go out to get all faux-ethnic ;)
Don't Scots eat some strange things like haggis? Personally, I'm glad my mom never made Irish and German fare because none of it has any appeal to me.
DeleteWe have any restaurant you could want here, but I wouldn't say there are large populations of those people, besides the Eastern Europeans and Germans.
yeah, i'm a bad scottsman, haggis is the only one I know of and i ain't ever tried it.
Deletewe enjoyed corned beef and cabbage tonight with a bit of a twist- teh corned beef was smoked and that made for a terrific boost to the experience.
DeleteI was on a blog last week when she was talking about Paczkis; they looked delicious (she was in the Chicago area). LOL, being 10 minutes from the Mexican border, we are actually a smorgasbord of food restaurants; nothing really special but growing up in Western Pennsylvania and Polish (1st generation on my dad's side, 2nd generation on my mom's side) we had a lot of the Polish foods traditionally on the holidays, cabbage pie during Lent when we couldn't eat meat on Fridays, pirogies (which we loved), kielbasa homemade which was absolutely delicious and have never found anything that duplicates it since, etc. Now I'm hungry for those memories of food of long ago :)
ReplyDeletebetty
I didn't realize you were that close to Mexico! You could certainly get all those foods here. There was just a news story about a family that's been making and selling kielbasa for four generations and all their customers.
DeleteIn Hawaii they have malasadas on Fat Tuesday, which I believe are Portugese. They are basically doughnuts without a hole. Here, it's pancakes - many churches have a pancake supper on Shrove Tuesday (at least, that's what it is called in the Episcopal church).
ReplyDeleteAs for "local" foods, I'm in Appaclachia - so many people routinely eat soup beans and cornbread for dinner. I'm not a fan of the fat-laden country cooking, and especially dislike the way they cook vegetables until they've leached all the nutrients out of them.
I have never heard of pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. Sounds like a Swedish tradition? I don't even know what a soup bean is, but it sounds nasty!
DeleteThey are usually pinto beans, cooked with fatback/salt pork. Disgusting. And the pancake tradition isn't Swedish, it's Anglican. So England, Australia, and so on.
DeleteBeing of Eastern European descent myself, I am quite familiar with both pierogies and kolacky, though paczki does not ring a bell. But if it's really just a fancy name for a jelly donut, count me in!
ReplyDeleteWho doesn't love a jelly donut? Though I actually prefer a creme stick (and oddly called LongJohns by some stores here!)
DeleteHere in Belfast of course you have all the usual Irish foods, like soda bread, champ (mashed potatoes and chopped spring onions with butter and milk, and maybe salt and pepper) and the Ulster Fry (fried breakfast of eggs, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans etc). Most of them thoroughly unhealthy, which is why the Irish aren't known for their longevity!
ReplyDeleteNick, thank you for this. I enjoy hearing about foods from other cultures. I've never heard of champ or Ulster Fry. The champ doesn't sound bad, but the fry is a bit much of a strange combination for me.
DeleteI dont think there are any weird food trends around here. I guess all we have is the norm. St paddys day comes with the oh so common corned beef and cabbage served at your local bar. Yes I will be indulging in that on Monday night :)
ReplyDeleteWhoa....you reminded me it's coming up. Green beer for me!
DeleteWe have all of those foods around here. But I am not a huge fan of any of them either. I really miss my grandma's poteca bread (pronounced poe-tee-zah). Best stuff in the world and no one makes it around here. It was one of those recipes passed down from generation to generation. I wonder if one of my cousins has it now. LOVED it.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of that! What nationality is it?
DeleteMmmm... jelly donuts!
ReplyDeleteOur town doesn't have any special foods like that, but I grew up with a traditional soupa meal on holidays. It's a roast cooked in a wine broth with carrots and potatoes. The broth is strained and spooned over french bread slices.
It's a Portuguese dish.
DeleteSounds delish!
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