Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
Stuffed pickled cabbage leaves (sauerkraut), a traditional Macedonian and Thracian dish called sarmades followed. The cabbage came from the pickling crocks in our basement. If none were available, Mom used fresh cabbage and cooked the sarmades in a bed of store-bought sauerkraut. Turkey with a bay leaf, cumin, cinnamon, and allspice-seasoned stuffing of ground meat, bread, onions, pignoli nuts, chestnuts, parsley, and currant raisins was one of the main courses, as was a Virginia ham or roast suckling pig. Serving dishes of sweet potato, rice (pilaf), Brussels sprouts, and cranberry sauce covered the table.
Nuts, cheese and fruit followed the meal. Later, Mom would serve coffee (Greek and regular) and dessert. Dad usually had made kadaifi, a version of baklava made with shredded wheat-like dough, and a candy, soutzouki, made from Muscat grape juice. If he had not already done so at Thanksgiving, Dad might open a crock of brandied fruit that he had carefully prepared beginning in August. He layered one fruit on top of another as each came in season, preserving all in a bath of Metaxa, a Greek brandy.
Making of soutzouki was complicated. Dad boiled Muscat grape juice with very clean oak ash until the juice thickened. The ash, whose thickening properties are a mystery, came from Carelas' farm. On a hunting weekend, Dad burned oak in a clean fireplace, allowed the embers to die out overnight, and bagged the ash to take home.
The thickened juice was filtered through several layers of cheesecloth until it ran clear, then returned to the fire to boil again. When he thought the mixture was ready Dad had us dip necklaces of half walnuts that had been strung on long pieces of cotton thread into the viscous liquid, time and again, until layers of the thickened grape juice gradually adhered to the nuts and formed a sausage-like roll covering them. When they were about one inch in diameter, he dusted the rolls with powdered sugar and cut them into half-inch pieces. Delicious!
In 1943, at the height of the War, several of our family's young men were home on leave from the Army. Tom Papanas, Diamond Papadiskos, Elias Demitriades, Anesti and Jim Zelios, and others were with us on Christmas Day. The house was packed and Mom, wanting the young men to enjoy themselves, made telephone calls to every Greek home with a daughter in Bay Ridge. By seven in the evening, our parlor on the second floor was converted into a dance floor with a Christmas tree at its head, and filled with young men and women. The party went on for hours. I remember how happy my mother was to provide a good time for these young men, all of whom returned at the end of the War.
There were many Sundays during the War that Mom collected soldiers and sailors at the back of the church and brought them home for a family dinner.
When Nitsa and I were very young, we would have a babysitter on New Year's Eve. Mom and Dad would meet my godparents, Bill and Rose Rusuli, and Rose's brother, Louie Dimitroff, who was accompanied by one of his girlfriends, at the Astor Hotel for the celebration. Dinner and dancing at the rooftop, horseshoe ballroom of the Astor would be followed by a three-in-the-morning breakfast at Toffenetti's across from the Astor on Times Square, or perhaps at an open Child's or Schraft's. Schraft's, incidentally, had a chain of small restaurants that offered wonderful ice cream sundaes.
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