My Heritage

America is a melting pot - figuratively and literally. For generations, people have immigrated to America from all across the world. These people have not only brought new cultures to America, they have brought new food. My family comes from many countries, including Ireland, Germany, Armenia, and Sweden. These cultures’ foods have created amazing holiday memories for me and have helped me to better understand my heritage. I believe that without food, holidays would not be the same and I would not have these “food” windows in my cultural background.
My favorite holiday meal is from Christmas Eve and represents my Swedish “melting pot”. Pickled herring, meatballs, mashed potatoes, and limpa bread, these are the things that define one part of my Christmas memories. Pulling from my family cookbook, “The Schrevelius Family …show more content…
I know that one quarter of my heritage is Irish and the other quarter German. However, I don’t know the name of any special foods from these countries and this has inhibited my knowledge of my family history. Maybe one day, I might be able to learn about these different cultures and how they might affect me. I did have a conversation with my grandmother that talked about her Christmas Eve dinners at her mother’s house. I asked her “if she had any German Christmas Eve dinners?”. She replied by saying “yes, I went to my mother’s every year to eat schnitzel with her and my 8 brothers and sisters”. My mother’s German family landed in America in Honeybrook, Pennsylvania in Amish country. Therefore, the food memories that I have of my mother’s family are associated with Amish foods such as shoo-fly pie, chicken corn soup and pickles. My mom has made chicken corn soup, which is not nearly as good as my mom’s, from the Honey Brook Church’s Centennial cookbook. Unfortunately, I don’t have any family or cookbooks to refer to discover my Irish