For the Pennsylvania Dutch, New Year's Day is Saurkraut Day. Every self-respecting Dutchman sits down for dinner that day before a huge Schissel of sauerkraut and pork, mounded with big puffy dumplings like cumulus clouds bobbing in the copious juice and served up in style with mashed potatoes, homemade applesauce, and other side dish specialties.
If you ask a Dutchman why he persists in this custom, he will tell you that it brings good luck throughout the coming year. Of course he could tell you, too, that he does it because he "chust likes sauerkraut" and welcomes another festive occasion to "enchoy" it, even though it is served on his table many times throughout the winter.
And if you ask why pork and not the festive American turkey is dished up for New Year's, the answer may be a symbolic one--"The pig roots forward and the turkey scratches backwards." The Dutchman does eat the all-American turkey for Christmas dinner--often also served with sauerkraut--but for New Year's it is pork and sauerkraut, and that's that.
Perhaps it all has something to do with his identity. In Civil War days, when the first Pennsylvania regiments reached Virginia, the natives called them "Sauerkraut Yankees." Pennsylvanians my not have liked it at the time--"Yankee" was a derogatory term in the Dutchman's as well as the Virginian's vocabulary--but they are proud of it today.
In central Pennsylvania, where there is a large Pennsylvania Dutch population, pork and sauerkraut advertisements appear in the newspapers throughout the dying days of December. One such ad from the Altoona Mirror of December 27, 1960, from Pielmeirs' Market, urges readers to "Follow the Tradition for New Year's Day" by serving "Sauerkraut and Pork," and adds its bid for confidence--"We make our own kraut." And in the December 29 issue of the same paper the Sanitary Market informs the readers that "Blocher's Fresh Dressed Pork will guarantee the success of your New Year' dinner."
Other evidence that the Pennsylvania Dutch have sanctified sauerkraut is the fact that all over the area, from the Delaware River to Juniata, and from the north and west branches of the Susquehanna to the Maryland border, most of the Pennsylvania Dutch churches delight in serving gala "sauerkraut suppers" in their parish halls during the fall of the year, usually making the kraut themselves.
So in a sense this Pennsylvania Dutch "national dish" is connected intimately with their festival year, their own ethnic identity, and even their religion.
Holidays are important to every group because they break into the routine of everyday life and work, offering a chance to be different for a change and to celebrate. For our ancestors, feasting on holidays not only heightened the sense of celebration, but was viewed as increasing the possibilities for abundance, wealth, and health. In the magical world in which they lived, what they did on New Year's, that symbolic hinge of the year, was important for its foretokening of their condition during the coming twelve months. Hence holiday foods became major items in all of Europe's traditional regional cultures.
In the German-speaking areas of central
...
Read Full Article
|
