Setting the Table

America has been described as a melting pot. Well, melt my immigrant ancestors did. They melted so much in the American cauldron that they become ethnically and culturally unrecognizable. While many German and Polish immigrant families were able to form close-knit communities that miraculously allowed them to maintain a sense of identity in the United States, mine camouflaged into the Michigan landscape. 

Unfortunately for me, and I mean very unfortunately, I grew up with a slim sense of self. My younger self knew that many Christmas traditions observed in the Western world originated in Germany and I could sing "O Tannenbaum" pretty well. I grew up loving polka music, though I'm not great at dancing along to it, but I try. And I  became a sucker for a good plate of sauerkraut or jar of dill pickles. If you had quizzed younger me on more than the stereotypical German or Polish cuisine or holiday traditions, I would have given you the infamous deer-in-headlights gaze. My subsequent foray into my family tree was my catalyst for discovering not just who my people were in the biographical sense, but who they were as Germans and Poles who came to America in the late 1800s.

Thanks to the city of Frankenmuth that lies a little over an hour away from my hometown, my German side was never as much a mystery to me in terms of food and culture as my Polish side was. In my early 20s, I was able to convince my mother and grandparents to drive over to the Polish Hall down the road from our house to see what Pulaski Days was all about. That fateful evening was when I had my first taste of traditional Polish food and I got to enjoy watching my grandparents polka together. 

A plate of food we received at our first Polaski Days consisting of kiełbasa, gołąbki, pierog, and kapusta kiszona.

My genealogy research throughout my 20s and early-30s occurred in fits and starts. College, work, marriage, and motherhood all took their toll on my hobby of self-discovery. Interestingly enough, it is motherhood that eventually fanned the flames and rekindled my research. I made up my mind that my daughter would know more than just the names and dates of her ancestors. 

Pulaski Days 2017 banner | Courtesy of James Parker 

After I got married, Mrs. T's pierogi from the freezer section of my local grocer was an easy and affordable meal for newly weds on a shoe string budget. At the time I was boiling them and serving them with sour cream and alongside beef smoked sausage (I typically don't eat pork for health reasons) sautéed with onions and peppers. Not a horrible meal by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew there had to be more out there. 

A few years down the line I discovered the cookbook section of an antique bookstore in the town where my in-laws were living. Among them were cookbooks put together by Eastern European groups that had settled the Great Lakes region. Believe me you, even on a tight budget, I snapped those books up and added them to my collection at home. I began combing through page-by-page learning the art of Polish and Eastern European cooking. Within the last couple of years I have thankfully stumbled upon Facebook groups, bloggers, and vloggers dedicated to Polish cooking. From them I began to learn the foods of my ancestors and my Polish cooking journey truly began. It is in cooking those meals that I have been able to connect to my past and pass along my heritage to my daughter.  

Celebrating Pulaski Days in 2015 with my daughter