Christmas memory

I am thinking of writing a memoir and bought Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away to help me with the process. One of the writing prompts was the history of nuts in your life, which brought back this memory:

The Christmas season officially began in our house the day my dad came home with bags of nuts and candy.

Every year, my dad went to buy nuts and candy at Eastern Market—a wholesale market area near downtown Detroit with large, semi-open sheds surrounded by small shops. My dad took me to the Market once—to buy meat from the butcher—and I remember it as being a noisy, gritty place.

My dad favored the Germack Pistachio Company, where he would buy pistachios and an assortment of other nuts and candies.

Seeing him walk through the door with his arms full of large, brown paper bags signaled Christmas was near. Each large bag was filled with smaller paper bags, each containing a different treat.  

The nonpareils and chocolate chunks were my favorite (and probably started my lifelong love affair with chocolate).

My mom brought out a large, wooden tray that was only used for Christmas nuts. It had small bins for the different kinds of nuts and a spot in the middle to hold the nutcracker and picks needed to dig out the nut meats. All the nuts my dad brought home needed to be shelled.

Our nutcrackers were not the fancy kind pictured in the story book of the Nutcracker; ours were unadorned v-shaped metal tools.

Some of the shells cracked easily and the nuts practically fell out; walnuts and peanuts were in this category. Others, though, were more difficult to crack, and I avoided those.

We each had our own way of cracking and eating nuts—cracking several nuts at a time and making a pile of the nutmeats or cracking and eating the nuts as we went along; I cracked and ate as I went along.

My brother used his front teeth to open his pistachios, which led to red fingers that would remain stained for days. I would open one pistachio with my teeth and then use the shell from that one to open the next.

My brothers and I mostly ate the pistachios, peanuts and walnuts, while my dad and the other adults who visited our home during the holidays ate the more exotic nuts (Brazils and filberts).

My dad walking in with the bags from Eastern Market was one of my favorite moments of the Christmas season, because it was a sign of how much my dad cared for us, of his thoughtfulness and generosity.

I moved back to Michigan almost seven years ago, and the first time I visited Eastern Market and saw the Germack Pistachio bags, I was transported back to this Christmas memory from my childhood. I gasped and said, “My dad used to buy our Christmas nuts and candy here!” And I smiled.

What is your history with nuts?

Giving thanks

For seven years, I was the director of an adult literacy program in suburban Philadelphia. Immigrants from many countries filled our English as a Second Language classes, but most of the students in our family literacy program were from South Korea.

As part of this program, we hosted an American Thanksgiving dinner each year. It was a way to introduce immigrants to this cultural holiday and teach them some of our customs, including the foods we traditionally eat on Thanksgiving. Our staff prepared most of the food, but students were given recipes for side dishes and invited to contribute if they wanted.

Invariably, a few of the students would bring dishes from their culture, and we would include the kimchi and rice in our Thanksgiving meal.

Our guests at the literacy council Thanksgiving dinners would gingerly try bites of turkey and cranberry sauce, and I loved watching them register the different tastes and textures. Food is an important part of any culture, and this dinner was a wonderful opportunity for people to try something new.

I wished my parents had attended such a class.

Growing up, we never had turkey for Thanksgiving; apparently turkeys were not available in Poland. We had ham or kielbasa or stuffed cabbage and a duck soup that I fear most Americans would not even try. Mashed potatoes were probably the only thing our Thanksgiving dinners had in common with the rest of America.

My mother did not care when I came home from school excited about traditional Thanksgiving dinners; she had never cooked a turkey and did not see the need for it.

Being thankful was what the holiday was about to her, and I could see her point. But I always felt a bit odd when kids talked about turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce—and I had nothing to contribute.

I have since come to understand that while we tend to think of one “traditional” American Thanksgiving dinner, the truth is that people in different regions of the country and from different ethnic backgrounds personalize Thanksgiving dinner. A simple Google search of “turkey stuffing” brings up hundreds of different recipes.

Merging cultures is part of the American tradition, and kimchi would have been as foreign to our Thanksgiving dinners growing up as the creamed onions I once had at a friend’s home in suburban Philadelphia or the Southern cornbread stuffing I was served in Virginia.

Recalling all those dinners this Thanksgiving made me think of the ways Americans can segregate ourselves into groups that reinforce our beliefs and allow us to stay in our comfort zones. We can tell ourselves that the Norman Rockwell portrait of a Thanksgiving dinner is the only true portrait, but that is just not true. Our country is made up of people from many different cultures and the blending of those cultures makes our country unique.

Honoring our heritage is important, but moving beyond our comfort zones makes life more interesting. Maybe it is time to try some kimchi.