Tuesday, March 25, 2008

tradition

Coming from your 'average, white, middle-class family' who have lived in Canada for more than a few generations, I feel as if my family has no traditions. Pardon, no cultural traditions. Sure we celebrate holidays like Christmas, Easter and birthdays but everyone does. There isn't anything special that my family does on this holidays (or any other for that matter) which I would call a tradition.

My first time tasting Mohnkuchen, I thought I was in heaven. German, poppy-seed bread - rolled up into long loaves then baked - swirls of mohn that are always sticking in your teeth - covered with a thin layer of butter. It is a traditional German bread that Mike's Grandmother bakes mostly for special occasions. After learning that only one of her kids knows how to bake this, I decided that I wanted to learn so that I could bake this bread for years to come. I could literally live off this stuff - and so can Mike.

Traditionally, the mohn is hand-ground which is a task that takes hours. Nowadays a little coffee grinder is used to grind the seed and to hurry up the process. I think that my friends have these little coffee grinders but they go by a different name - some sort of 'buster'?? ;) The dough was mixed using measurements that sounded like 'until it looks like this' or 'to taste' or 'I just eyeball it'. For someone who is trying to learn, this was definitely a great initiation.

After a couple of hours, many cups of tea, a few Kinder-Surprises (courtesy of my Easter bunny) the final product was these lightly browned, rolls of poppy-seed bread.


From this weekend I learned: It is never too late to create a tradition. It will be nice to know that one day, after many hours of practicing, I'll pull these golden brown loaves from the oven and serve them to my family. Well, just Mike & I - but hey, it is still a family to me.


1 comment:

LaDitsterNo1 said...

it is exciting to read that you are making your own traditions. Great inspiration :)