As a child in mid-century,
I thought that the whole world (if there was a world beyond our little
prairie town) was rich with relatives, gathered around oak tables
that slid apart so leaves could be added for visitors.
I also thought then, that
the older you got, the more you spoke German until you ended up like
my grandfather, sighing thankful dialect prayers over bountiful meals
which made each of our holidays a schmeckfest, a Germans from Russia
festival of food.
In my childhood , just crossing the graveled road to my grandparents
home took me to another, older place where everything had a different
name, and where a tree wasn't a tree at all, but a baum, where cucumbers
were gugumerea, hamburgers became katleda, and potatoes, they were
grumberra that my grandmother told me to dig from her garden with
a "gavel".
At my grandparents, I changed
too, for when I snitched tasty ammonia cookies, I wasn't a naughty
boy, like at home, instead, in my grandmother's eyes, I became a "grubicha
suess-gusch" --- a little fellow who ate sweets like a hungry animal.
At that time I knew almost
nothing of our confusing history. In my child's mind, the distant
place of my grandfather's birth, his old homeland of Russia, was strange
and magical, a place where the sea was black and where your tongue
pronounced words in sad and musical ways.
But my grandparents rarely
mentioned the old country. It would take me twenty years or more to
finally fill in the rough outlines of how our people, unsera leute,
as grandpa called them, ever came to America.
Collectors
Edition Schmeckfest
on Videotape
If
you missed seeing Schmeckfest on Prairie Public Television, you
still have a chance to enjoy this heart-warming (and mouth-watering)
documentary. Order a videotape copy of Schmeckfest for only $29.95.
This wonderful Collectors' Edition includes the full documentary plus
almost 20 minutes of bonus footage not seen on television. Order
online now or call 1-800-359-6900 to order your copies today.
In my childhood , just crossing the graveled road to my grandparents
home took me to another, older place where everything had a different
name, and where a tree wasn't a tree at all, but a baum, where cucumbers
were gugumerea, hamburgers became katleda, and potatoes, they were
grumberra that my grandmother told me to dig from her garden with
a "gavel".
If
you missed seeing Schmeckfest on Prairie Public Television, you
still have a chance to enjoy this heart-warming (and mouth-watering)
documentary. Order a videotape copy of Schmeckfest for only $29.95.
This wonderful Collectors' Edition includes the full documentary plus
almost 20 minutes of bonus footage not seen on television.