[lit-ideas] Re: Sauerkraut
- From: david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 13:05:18 -0800
On Jan 13, 2021, at 9:56 AM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Unbeknownst to any of us at the time, I later learned, thanks to
Ancestry.com, that we had DNA that was nearly 100% from the Britain,
Scotland, Ireland and Wales. There was a smidgen identified as Northern
Europe that could contain some German, but it could as easily have been
French or Dutch. In any case, I have always hated sauerkraut.
Helm sounds pretty English to my ear—short for helmet, a place name, a boat’s
steering position.
https://www.zazzle.com/the_helm_kendal_by_moonlight_photo_print-190262084893942763?rf=238840279726397180&tc=&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=us_shopping&utm_term=z190262084893942763&ca_chid=2001810&ca_source=gaw&ca_ace={aceid}&ca_nw=s&ca_dev=c&ca_pl=&ca_pos=&ca_cid=&ca_agid=4593295327&ca_caid=293065114&ca_adid=&ca_kwt=&ca_mt=e&ca_fid=&ca_tid=pla-4578984936488388&ca_lp=&ca_li=&ca_devm=&ca_plt=&gclsrc=aw.ds&rf=238772772155923633&tc=483f87566cad1d7acaa8d8a90cb4c398&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=us_shopping&utm_term=&ca_chid=2001810&ca_ace={aceid}&ca_nw=s&ca_dev=c&ca_pl=&ca_pos=&ca_cid=&ca_agid=4593295327&ca_caid=293065114&ca_adid=&ca_kwt=&ca_mt=e&ca_fid=&ca_tid=pla-4578984936488388&ca_lp=&ca_li=&ca_devm=&ca_plt=&msclkid=483f87566cad1d7acaa8d8a90cb4c398
I wonder now about the sauerkraut. Did it come here along with just German
immigrants? Louis Blenker was German, but if there was a "prevailing aroma
of sauerkraut around the company messes," others besides Blenker probably
liked it . . . shudder . . . hideous stuff.
I’m wondering if you got the right stuff. I thought I hated sauerkraut until I
tasted some that wasn’t made in Britain, covered in mayonaise and an
abomination. When people make it well, I now enjoy it.
Thanks for the reminder that I want to return to Shelby Foote. Stephen Straker
and I toured Civil War battlefields with a set of cassette tapes, a recording
of Shelby reading his own words in that wonderful accent and voice. This, of
course, was a little while back. I own the books, they’re just daunting in
their thickness.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
where the power is now back on
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