A Nod to Germany

Twice now I have lived in places to which I actually have ancestral ties. I don't mean I lived in the general vicinity, I mean I trod the very streets that my ancestors did over 300 years ago! This may not mean much to Europeans who do it all the time, but for an American, and a westerner and descendant of pioneers that is a rare occurance. Antiquity of that variety is a novelty to us. We either have the very ancient, or the brand new, those are usually our only choices.



Once such place was in Germany. I did not know it then, but I could have gone to the town hall in Kaiserslautern and looked up the records of my own family. We have a lot of German ancestry. Maybe that's why I fell instantly in love with the food, so I guess its fitting that I chose the Dresden Plate pattern for my German block. Growing up one of my favorite dishes was chicken fried steak. Who knew it was really a rahm schnitzel in disguise, or the Gesundheit we reflexivly muttered to one another at the sound of sneeze actually meant something.



One of our earliest German Ancestors in America was Johan Jakob Darner who emigrated from the Rhineland Pfalz in the early 1700s and settled near Fredrick Maryland on a tract of land he named after his home in Germany, "Landau". He is one among many though. We also can lay claim to belonging to the Beiser, Sturm, Pfuster,Sauer,Werneich,Gah, Gloss and Strihl,Specht, Yost, and Everhart families just to name a few. Many more go unidentified. But we carry within us evidence of their existance. Its in our blond hair, our celtic skins, our love of pork and beer and the instant familiarity I felt with Germany . I wonder if Jamie felt it too? So now when we say Gesundheit its more than just a vestige of our German ancestory, it really means something. So Gesundheit- Good health to you!