look! a tribal connection!
Aug. 9th, 2007 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisalikAll this time I thought it was an elaborate joke.
So. This Gogol Bordello song - 'American Wedding.' Starts thus: Have you ever been to American wedding? Where is the vodka, where is marinated herring?
I went: Where is the wait a minute WHAT?
Ever since I can remember being able to eat solid foods and stay up until midnight, we had an odd tradition for New Year's. Herring. My grandmother, who tended towards superstition (no shoes on tables, no umbrellas opened under roofs, salt over the shoulder and knock on wood) swore up and down that, for an Estonian, it was good luck if the first thing you ate in the new year was herring. I can tell you right off that nine tenths of Estonian traditions involve food, and nine tenths of Estonian food involves fish, so logic says it's because that's what they always had to hand. But Grandma swore it was luck, and wanted us to eat it. So we did, by the bucketload, it seemed. This. Every year. I haven't had any in ages, but I can still taste it. The first bite is fantastic, the next three or four are all right, and six or seven in you're ready to throw the jar across the room -- so you pass it to someone else, and they do likewise, and in February you find the three-fourths-full jar in the back of the fridge, get nauseated, and pitch it. So it goes. But it's a tradition, and Grandma only wanted us to have good luck, so either we do it and feel mildly urpy, or don't do it and feel guilty. (Ah, guilt. The true cornerstone of all familial rituals.)
Where is marinated herring? There's got to be a tradition behind that, and I bet you it's for luck. Since when was this not just my family being nuts?
I pinged a friend who was born in Moldova, to see just how universal this is. All I had to say was herring and we were off with the bitching.
Indi: pflergh. herring. i envied the kids who only had to eat their damn vegetables.
Bluticus: yeah me too
Indi: it got watered down to just once a year, but. the one thing that can ruin new year's? herring in sour cream. with onions.
Bluticus: I like sour cream
Bluticus: and i love onions
Bluticus: but...herring
Bluticus: eww
Bluticus: i hate sea-food
Indi: sour cream? great. onions? great. both with herring? UGH.
Bluticus: indeed!
So. This Gogol Bordello song - 'American Wedding.' Starts thus: Have you ever been to American wedding? Where is the vodka, where is marinated herring?
I went: Where is the wait a minute WHAT?
Ever since I can remember being able to eat solid foods and stay up until midnight, we had an odd tradition for New Year's. Herring. My grandmother, who tended towards superstition (no shoes on tables, no umbrellas opened under roofs, salt over the shoulder and knock on wood) swore up and down that, for an Estonian, it was good luck if the first thing you ate in the new year was herring. I can tell you right off that nine tenths of Estonian traditions involve food, and nine tenths of Estonian food involves fish, so logic says it's because that's what they always had to hand. But Grandma swore it was luck, and wanted us to eat it. So we did, by the bucketload, it seemed. This. Every year. I haven't had any in ages, but I can still taste it. The first bite is fantastic, the next three or four are all right, and six or seven in you're ready to throw the jar across the room -- so you pass it to someone else, and they do likewise, and in February you find the three-fourths-full jar in the back of the fridge, get nauseated, and pitch it. So it goes. But it's a tradition, and Grandma only wanted us to have good luck, so either we do it and feel mildly urpy, or don't do it and feel guilty. (Ah, guilt. The true cornerstone of all familial rituals.)
Where is marinated herring? There's got to be a tradition behind that, and I bet you it's for luck. Since when was this not just my family being nuts?
I pinged a friend who was born in Moldova, to see just how universal this is. All I had to say was herring and we were off with the bitching.
Indi: pflergh. herring. i envied the kids who only had to eat their damn vegetables.
Bluticus: yeah me too
Indi: it got watered down to just once a year, but. the one thing that can ruin new year's? herring in sour cream. with onions.
Bluticus: I like sour cream
Bluticus: and i love onions
Bluticus: but...herring
Bluticus: eww
Bluticus: i hate sea-food
Indi: sour cream? great. onions? great. both with herring? UGH.
Bluticus: indeed!
