Why I carry on the traditions of Ukrainian Christmas GlobeDebate
, half-drink and half-stewed fruit. Some of these dishes proved to be more popular than others; some had only a few appearances on the menu, falling off after years of children refusing to eat them. But at any time of the year, I can taste all of them, from the unpleasant to the rhapsodic, on the back of my tongue and in the part of my brain where I know who I am and where I come from.
When I was younger, when my baba still lived in her own house, I would sit in her kitchen and watch her make, her wrinkled fingers coated in flour, pinching the dough with such tiny movements I could barely see the edges of each action. I tried to mimic her, but my clunky perogies fell apart when put into boiling water, their innards whirlpooling in the pot, while Baba’s perfectMy baba and I argued more as I grew up and started to push back.
As Baba gets older, my father has started to take on the responsibility of cooking for Sviat Vechir. He has the book of secrets to help him, the worn black notebook in which all of my grandmother’s handwritten recipes live. There can be no thick-doughedwith thick winter cabbage. In the book are recipes that need to be planned year-round, that call for cabbage bought in summer and kept in the freezer, that need wild mushrooms and handmade dough and hours and hours of work.
Every year, my brother and I make the trek home. Sometimes, if she’s feeling up to it, Baba comes over to taste the borscht and watch us struggle to assemble, with a fold like a delicate ear. Sometimes Baba stays at her apartment, and it is up to us to figure out how to carry on the traditions and how to make them our own. But regardless of who is in the kitchen, there’s a calmness to standing side by side, hair tied back under kerchiefs, hands working like an assembly line.
When the whole family sits down for Sviat Vechir, we all bring the dishes we’ve made. Invariably, someone’sare better formed. But it never matters when we’re all at the table. Tensions from childhood or last year or last month are forgotten as my aunt passes around the bread with honey, wishing us health and happiness in the new year. We sing about peace, about the glory of this night, whether the words are in Ukrainian or English or a mix of the two.
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