Canadian, eh
I think my parents wanted us kids to be very Canadian. The only time my mom would speak Polish was when she was talking on the phone with her sisters and didn't want us to know the dirt they were yakking about. Now, my mom spoke pretty good Polish, but with disuse, she lost enough of her vocabulary that she would insert English words here and there, sometimes enough for us to piece together bits of the conversation.
I never learned to dance the polka, and that's on my list of things to learn in this lifetime.
The one area where we kept up some links with an old country was with holiday foods. My mom usually made dozens of pirogy, a pan full of patychky, or what we usually called meat-sticks, and a big roaster of cabbage rolls. It was all unspeakably good peasant food. These are foods of love, meaning they take a lot of commitment to make. I learned some of the tricks of the trade along the way, and usually I make at least some of these foods each year. My sister-in-law has learned to make patychky and hers are excellent. If I don't make cabbage rolls, though, we don't have them. My pirogi are really good, but I'm not fast at making them, so when I do, I make a lot and freeze them in bags of a dozen. Maybe over the weekend, if I'm feeling ambitious, I'll do a little cooking.
7 comments:
Have fun cooking! I am getting tired of the turkey/ham fare, cabbage rolls sound pretty darn good. I don't know what the other foods are - explain to us Heinz 57 type of people - we are so deficient when it comes to the pleasure of having an ethnic identification and traditions to follow. "H" is Norwegian - his grandma showed me how to do Kringla, I might surprise him - but that's the extinct of ethnic food - unless I steal from someone else!
Pirogi are little dumplings often filled with cheese and potatos, or sometimes with kapusta (sourkraut) or even fruit. They're usually boiled then sauteed (we do them up with onions and mushrooms). Patychky are chunks of meat, usually pork or pork and veal that have been marinated in garlic and booze then breaded, browned in oil, and baked. Go here and scroll down for recipe and pictures. Try these at home. They rock!
Yum...meat sticks! Remember when Michael used to buy them from your mother and take them to the set of ENG and Night Heat!
Ooh I like Kringla! Haven't had them in ages...
Mmm pirogi.
db's mom went through a phase where she ignored her Italian self. She wanted to be "Canadian" and as a result db and his brother grew up on meat and potatoes (no wonder db became veg) with very little info on their Italian heritage. It has only been the last 15 or 20 years that she decided she wanted to try and cook the foods her mother made.
Most recently we just received a chocolate vegan paneforte from her for Christmas.
I hope the pirogies get made and you have fun making them.
recipe duly nabbed and pasted into Word so I can print it to try. Looks very good......
In the previous comment I said "extinct" of ethnic food, instead of extent (true to my dizzy dame mode of lately) - well almost. She (his grandma) also taught me to make cod latke. I think that is what it is called. so good - mashed potatoes, cod, wrapped in a latke, (some kind of bread thing, dripping in butter).
I cook a lot of ethnic - but few old family recipes - Grandma had a bunch of Missouri recipes - think it was just southern...
so am going to try these - I think they would go good with a potato salad!
Gardenia, if you try them, please report back and let me know how you liked them.
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