[Sca-cooks] Meanderings on family histories and foods, was, Re: Packing from the Nimatnama

[ranvaig at columbus.rr.com]

>My grandmother had been born
>in an ethnically German town which was actually in what is now modern 
>Hungary, not far from the Romanian border -- we used to joke, behind 
>her back, about being descended from Transylvanians and/or gypsies, 
>or both, because had she heard such jokes, she would have been 
>absolutely Not Amused. It turns out, though, that German communities 
>were, and still are, scattered all over Central Europe, well outside
>of the modern German and Austrian borders, including Transylvania.

Many years ago, my uncle wanted to visit the town where my 
grandfather was born.  When Grandfather left it was in Germany.  When 
he finally found the place, it now was in Poland. The name of the 
town was spelled differently, but they still spoke German. For quite 
some time he made the joke "We were so proud of being German, but are 
nothing but a bunch of Polacks".  The national boundaries have 
changed so many times, there aren't nice neat lines between languages 
and culture.

Ranvaig