Every New Year's eve when I was growing up, the family elders, particularly my grandmother, who we called Big Nana (and yes, there was a Little Nana too) insisted that we eat some creamed herring on New Year's eve so we'd have good luck in the upcoming year. I still remember the scrunched up faces some of the kids made as they squeezed down just one piece of herring. Herring is the kind of food which, if you don't like it, has a challenging texture and those were the days before sushi was popular.
I grew to like herring so this year I voluntarily ate a small bowl of creamed herring with onions on New Year's eve. It brought on nostalgic memories of what's happened over the last decade- and dreams about the future.
The last decade was good to me. I'm relying on God, hard work, and a bit of faith for the future. And the herring.
6 comments:
I guess you must be from a northerly part of the USA? Herrings and the like are generally found in northerly climates - they are widely found in the lakes of Sweden and feature heavily in that country's cuisine. Do you have any Scandinavian ancestry?
Kids are faddy eaters and often don't like what we adults like. They like sweet foods and dislike anything with complex tastes, often only detecting the bitterness. I've heard it said though that if a pregnant woman eats certain types of foods, the baby is likely to develop a taste for it, and that's certainly proven to be the case with my cousin and her baby, who really likes hummus and other whole-food type things. When I was a kid, I would have considered it to be nasty mush.
Matt,
We have Irish, Scottish, and a few other bloodlines in us :) However I consider myself an honorary Norwegian because of my Ski for Light friends through Sons of Norway, so maybe that's why I enjoy herring more now.
As for hummus, I agree with you that as a kid that wouldn't have appealed- more of an "acquired taste" maybe. Interesting about the pregnancy theory- I'm thinking my mother must have eaten a lot of chocolate...
happy 2010!
happy new year to you too, Greg!
So that's the formula.... now I know. Happy New Year!
LOL! Happy New Year, Terri!
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