‘Oh Me Oh My! It’s the syttende mai!’ My wife popped out of bed. Grabbed her Norwegian flag and ran out on the porch in her nightie to hang it as the sun came up. This was her yearly ritual to celebrate Norwegian Independence.
She was proud of her ethnic heritage. Every house we lived in had a Norwegian Shrine. Bit and pieces of Norwegian folk art she’d collected over the years. She’d glow with pleasure telling the story of meeting the Crown Prince. As a little girl she’d been chosen to dress up in a folk costume and present him with flowers when he visited Milwaukee, WI.
But! She really did not like Norwegian food. The thought of swallowing lutefisk could make her gag. The smell of herring made her queasy.
She loved Polish food. At the very top of her comfort food suppers were: Kiełbasa with sauerkraut and a side of dinner dumplings and Tosoś: salmon, boiled in a dill sauce with a side of boiled potatoes.
Gołąbki: cabbage parcels, stuffed with meat and Wątróbki drobiowe: liver with smoked bacon and onions came in a close second.
After the Berlin Wall fell, we planned a trip to the cities in which Bach and Martin Luther lived and worked. As we mapped out our route in Saxony (East Germany) she noticed that it wasn’t too far from the village her Dad had spent summers with his immigrant mother when he was a child.
When we finished touring the Wartburg Castle where Luther did a translation of the New Testament into the language of the common folk, we thought we’d drive over to her Grandmother’s village. With our more detailed driving map, we discovered the village was in Poland!
All came clear; she had Polish genes in her taste buds.
Did this make her an unpatriotic American? No Way! On the fourth of July she hung a Stars and Stripes ‘Old Glory’ flag. She was a solid apple pie alamode and hot dog citizen of the USA.
Of course, apple pie came to us from the British Isles. Ice cream came to us from Italy. Hot dogs came to us from Germany.
Over years, everyday America has struggled to free itself from the stiff protocols of pedigreed aristocracy. We’ve taken bits and pieces of immigrant cultures from Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and all over the globe and woven them into a casual American style.
Any way you slice the loaf, we are a mongrel nation. And ain’t that grand! We live well from an eclectic multi-cultural, multi-national American menu.
I do wonder. Who is finding joy in stirring up the bitter pot of xenophobic elitism dominating today’s conversation in the public square?
