it's what's for dinner

Who would have thought that sauerkraut could cause such strong reactions in people? Honestly, I had no idea.

I grew up with no particular New Year's Day traditions, other than perhaps finishing my thank you notes before school started up again. My grandparents would come for dinner, but holiday dinners were always something different, and usually something we'd never had before (or again after, for that matter). [When I was a little older, possibly my early teens, I remember Gramma Katie meeting me at the door on New Year's Day, and telling me not to come in. When she saw the confusion on my face, she explained that it was good luck for the first visitor of the year to be male, so I would have to wait until Dad or my brother to walk through the door first. Since then, I have tried to more sneakily incorporate this tradition.] It wasn't until I met my husband that I started to experience the concept of "traditional" foods on holidays and other special occasions. Since then, we have developed our own food traditions, particularly on Christmas Eve.

The other day, while grocery shopping for the week, we modified Jonathan's menu to have steak on New Year's Day with Mom. After getting the steaks, chicken and some bacon from the butcher, I turned to Guy and asked if we should get some shrimp, too. I didn't think anything of it, other than it makes a nice appetizer when dinner's not quite ready. I found out later that when one of the boys asked why we'd gotten shrimp (it wasn't on the menu, after all, and we tend to be sticklers there), he said that it was because I'd remembered that it was traditional for his family to have shrimp on New Year's Day. When I heard the explanation, I admitted that had nothing to do with it, but I will try to remember to include it in the future, since it clearly means more to him than either of us had realized.

What does all this have to do with sauerkraut? Well, I can't stand the stuff. We live in an area of the country that is steeped in Germanic tradition, and apparently that New Resident Handbook that we seemed to have misplaced when we relocated from a totally different area of the country includes the fact that here, if you want to survive the year, you must have pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day for good luck. For the first few years here, I would try patiently to explain that I did not have any ties to this particular tradition, and that since I didn't know it, it couldn't possibly apply to me. For most of the years since, I've just avoided talking about the menu for this particular day off. Today, however, I posted as my Facebook status: "So glad I did not grow up with that pork and sauerkraut on New Year's thing so I don't have to pass it on! Happy New Year! Bring on the surf and turf!" (Have I mentioned that I can't stand sauerkraut??)

What a response! Most people, as usual, had some variation of "if you'd only try mine, you'd like it!" And while lemon pepper or garlic and hot peppers do sound as though they would improve the stuff, I'm still not sold. The one comment about leaving out the juniper berries may have come closer to the issue, but still.

Before I go on, I should probably say that I am of Polish/Eastern European and Irish descent. Kraut is not completely foreign to me. I've known, from a very young age, that I would have starved at an even younger age had I been raised in the Old Country, based on those foods I was introduced to. Boiled food makes me hungry within an hour (except for pasta, which makes me hungry in 2 hours. Chinese food fills me for hours; sometimes days) and I just can't do kraut. Kielbasa and pierogies, on the other hand, I could eat, and is still one of my favorite meals, provided the pierogies are filled with potatoes and cheese, not kraut. We used to tell the boys that if they were not good, Santa would put a can of sauerkraut in their stockings. Seriously, that's how I feel about the stuff.

In college, the dining hall was on a 10-day schedule, and in the rotation was Reuben sandwiches and hermit cookies. The only day to get the hermits was the day with the Rubens. Those hermits were good. As a result, I decided I could like Reuben for the sake of the cookies. And they weren't bad, despite being made with pumpernickel, corned beef and kraut--none of which I liked. At all. I thought maybe it was the combination of all things together, or the hermits as a reward. Or the chocolate milk. Whatever it was, it got to where I actually looked forward to Reuben day.

Until the day I realized that Reuben night always found me feeling rather sick; wicked cramps, and a terrible grinding in my belly. My beloved lunch was turning on me, I thought, and then it occurred to me that until I started eating sauerkraut, I didn't have that problem. By Christmas, I had given them up, and didn't have the semi-weekly nausea.

You can say all you want that it was probably the bread. Or the meat. Or it could also have been the cookies. But I know, deep inside, that it was the cursed kraut. It's just icky. And how could that possibly mean good luck to me? Anyone who wants to can have it for their dinner on January 1. I'll stick with what I know will make me happy. And won't stink up my kitchen. This year, steak with buerre d'maitre, and all the fixin's. Oh, it was good!

And shrimp cocktail. It's tradition.