I suppose Galveston, Texas was very much akin to New York City when I was growing up.
No, of course it wasn't nearly the same size, but it darned sure had ethnic and religious diversity. So in our neighborhood, in addition to plain old Christian Americans like most of us were, there were Greeks, Italians, Jews, Serbians, French and English.
We all fit together pretty well. One of the great things that came from this diversity was that all of us were equally exposed to the others' languages, traditions and religious celebrations. That meant that we shared the food of our celebrations with the others.
We also sprinkle our conversations with Yiddish, Greek, Italian and French words...words for which there are no really accurate English synonyms. I still do that today, favoring Yiddish more often than the others.
Consequently, during the Jewish High Holy Days, I personally cook some of the Jewish recipes that I learned as a teenager. And since the Greek and Serbian Orthodox have their special foods that they prepare and serve during their Christmas, Easter and New Year's (those holy days are based on a different calendar than ours, known as the Julian Calendar), I'm quite comfortable cooking a fitting meal or two then.
Tonight Patty and I prepared and baked our first batch of cuchidahti. That's a great Sicilian fig cookie that has been an important part of the Christmas Season celebrations for generations. It's the Sicilian answer to the Greek baklava. They are equally as good. We will make many more batches before New Year's.
<<<=== Cuchidahti - Sicilian Fig Cookies
Our next door neighbors when I was growing up were of Sicilian decent, and, of course, every year around Christmas they would make hundreds of cuchidahti, and would give us a supply that would last for at least two months. My daddy especially loved them. He could never remember "cuchidahti," so he called them "grandma cookies" in honor of the matriarch of the neighboring family.
As Christmas approaches every year, my mind returns to my childhood, and I begin longing for cuchidahti*.
All of these memories, and resurrections of the special foods that helped to make them, are very important to me. After all, they played an important part in making me who I am.
So now that Christmas is just a couple of months away, get a recipe for cuchidahti and begin a new tradition at your house, one you can share with your neighbors, one that their children will remember for another generation.
*Some refer to cuchidahti as "cucidate." That's a bit of slang for those who don't want to go to the trouble of saying "koo-che-dah-tee."
BILL CHERRY, REALTORS
DALLAS - PARK CITIES
Since 1964
214 503-8563
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