January 2: Black Eyed Peas and Sauerkraut

My grandfather on my mother's side had owned a neighborhood grocery in Akron, Ohio. It was how he was able to feed his family well even when money was tight. He loved his customers. At that time, there were people from all over--the Southern U.S. and many European countries, moving to Akron. He took the time to find out where everyone was from and learn to greet them in their native language. This was a man who was not educated, who had grown up on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere in Greece. (He died two years before I was born, so these stories have been passed down to me, and I feel as if I knew him even though we never met in this life).

Anyway, he loved to try out new recipes based on what people were buying. There's a great story about how my family thought pizza was made on a regular loaf of bread (not a thin pizza crust) for years because he'd talked to the Italians about what they were making but didn't get the crust part right.

And everybody was buying black-eyed peas and sauerkraut for New Year's, so that's what my family ordered into the store, and what they ate, too. To this day, at our New Year's day celebration, we eat  black-eyed pea soup that has a decidedly Greek flavor and sauerkraut. It wasn't until I was an adult that I learned this was not a Greek tradition like most of our other holiday food traditions.

A couple days before New Year's I went to the store to get everything I needed for the Basilopita and the New Year's meal (as well as a turkey supper we ate on New Year's eve, but I digress). My cart was full to overflowing and I was being really methodical--a rare trip to the grocery by myself--crossing things off my list as I purchased them. 

I had a coupon for sauerkraut, so I knew the grocery carried it, but I couldn't find it. The store has been understaffed during the week between Christmas and New Year's, and I couldn't find anyone to help. Then I heard a woman say cheerfully to her daughter, "You can't have New Year's without sauerkraut." She was, strangely, someone I didn't recognize--rare in our small town, as most people look familiar even if I don't know their names. I followed her, and ended up grabbing three big bags in the refrigerator section (I'd been looking for a glass jar). 

She turned to me and said, "Oh, I love this stuff. Thank goodness I have an excuse to buy it on New Year's. Nobody else in my house can stand it. But it brings back memories of my parents, you know?"

"Yes," I said, and both of us looked at each other and teared up a little.

I wanted to give her a hug, but she sighed and turned to her teenage daughter, who looked a little embarrassed, and said, "Well, off we go to get in that long line." She waved awkwardly at me and pushed her much less full cart toward the check out.

"Sauerkraut, huh?" the woman at check out said. She often comments on how I buy food that is decidedly different from the food everyone else buys in our small town. She was around when I first asked the manager to order in phyllo dough, feta, and eggplants. "I didn't figure Greek people ate that stuff." She laughed.

"Well, this Greek person does," I said, and she laughed much harder than she should have, and said, "You know what this stuff does to your stomach, right? You probably don't need this much."

"Gross," the check out boys said in unison, and then they put on their hats and gloves and we all braced for the -45 degree cold. They wheeled two giant carts out to my car for me, joking that I had enough food to feed the entire town in my trunk.

"It's a Greek thing," I said, which puzzled them, but they were too young and polite to ask what I meant.