It's time for another Family History For Children blog link-up and this month's theme is family recipes. In every family, food is such a big part of our traditions and culture and introducing kids to foods and recipes unique to your own family can be a great way to get them interested in family history!
My dad and his siblings are grandchildren of Polish immigrants, and when we all get together as an extended family, especially for Christmas, we still eat traditional Polish foods. We typically have two types of kielbasa along with a couple of types of pierogi (and don't forget the beet horseradish!). For dessert, we have kruschiki, which is a flaky pastry covered with powdered sugar, and kolache, which are Eastern European pastry rolls with sweet fruit fillings.
My dad and his siblings are grandchildren of Polish immigrants, and when we all get together as an extended family, especially for Christmas, we still eat traditional Polish foods. We typically have two types of kielbasa along with a couple of types of pierogi (and don't forget the beet horseradish!). For dessert, we have kruschiki, which is a flaky pastry covered with powdered sugar, and kolache, which are Eastern European pastry rolls with sweet fruit fillings.
Polish Kielbasa
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Heavily-Sugared Kolache with Other Holiday Goodies
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Pierogi and Beet Horseradish
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Enjoying some kruschiki
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Introduce Ethnic Foods to Your Family
Your family might not regularly eat the ethnic foods of your Old World ancestors, but have you ever thought of bringing some of those foods into your family gatherings, as a way in which to reconnect with and honor your roots? Whether your family has been in America for 50 or 250 years, there are benefits to reintroducing your family members to their ancestors' food traditions.
How?
The Internet makes it easy to find traditional ethnic foods and recipes for virtually any culture or nationality imaginable. Of course, making those recipes may prove more challenging than simply finding them, but there's no better thing in the world than to learn something new alongside your kids, who can and should be a part of preparing these recipes and sampling the results. And don't be afraid to ask for help or cheat a little. My family still lives in an area where there are Polish bakeries and butchers around, so we get a lot of our food from them instead of making it from scratch.
Since we're in the season of large family gatherings, Try to get everyone involved! Arrange a friendly competition among your extended family members to each bring a new-to-the-family 'heritage' dish as part of a pot luck holiday event. Ask the kids to help judge the food and then be sure to swap those recipes with each other, and maybe suggest ways in which to improve the recipes.
Since we're in the season of large family gatherings, Try to get everyone involved! Arrange a friendly competition among your extended family members to each bring a new-to-the-family 'heritage' dish as part of a pot luck holiday event. Ask the kids to help judge the food and then be sure to swap those recipes with each other, and maybe suggest ways in which to improve the recipes.
Why?
If you dig a little deeper, and learn about how some of these foods were traditionally prepared without modern kitchen conveniences, it will tell you a lot about the culinary talents and work ethics of your ancestors. Learning about what foods were staples of the diet when people couldn't travel long distances or import goods from elsewhere will tell you a lot about your ancestors' lifestyles - what types of crops they were able to cultivate, livestock they were able to successfully breed, and fish or wildlife they were able to hunt and catch.
Whatever type of food traditions your family enjoys, it is important to talk about those traditions together, especially when the kids are around. Kids so often think of a tradition as something you DO, not necessarily something you EAT. It's up to us adults to show them that a family traditions can involve actions, things, people, foods, etc. I created this worksheet a couple of years ago for a program in which we talked about different cultural holiday traditions. It's been on the Printables page for awhile, but I thought this was a perfect time to highlight it, in the hopes someone out there might find it useful during this holiday season.
Whatever type of food traditions your family enjoys, it is important to talk about those traditions together, especially when the kids are around. Kids so often think of a tradition as something you DO, not necessarily something you EAT. It's up to us adults to show them that a family traditions can involve actions, things, people, foods, etc. I created this worksheet a couple of years ago for a program in which we talked about different cultural holiday traditions. It's been on the Printables page for awhile, but I thought this was a perfect time to highlight it, in the hopes someone out there might find it useful during this holiday season.
At this link, there is also the 'In Grandma's Kitchen' printable, which I highlighted several months ago as part of an Italian Heritage program I organized. It's great for encouraging kids to document family recipes.
Check out these other entries to this blog hop and submit your own!
Check out these other entries to this blog hop and submit your own!
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful holiday season!
©2017 Emily Kowalski Schroeder
©2017 Emily Kowalski Schroeder
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