Steady Kids Know Where They Come From

In many families, there is a recipe card nobody can quite read anymore. The handwriting has faded (if it was even legible to begin with), half the measurements are missing because the woman who wrote it didn't think it needed them, and one line just says to bake it until it looks right.

You keep the card anyway because it's a nice memento to have. But since you can't actually make it, back in the drawer it goes.

I have spent years watching which family hand-me-downs survive and which vanish without anyone intentionally meaning to lose them.

And the kids who know what those mementos mean in their family story? They grow up knowing that where they came from has a hand in who they decide to be later on. An empty life story creates gaps that you may not be able to fill in when it's too late.

What actually sticks

I have written before about why knowing where you come from seems to steady a child, and I will not run the whole argument again here.

The short version is that kids who grow up with the real story of their family, setbacks and all, tend to hold up better when life turns difficult. A child does not grow more resilient by memorising a family tree. It's the storytelling that puts in the reps.

Oftentimes, it's sitting at a table while somebody older says, "This happened to us, and then this, and here we still are."

Which leaves an awkward question for the rest of us. Where is a busy parent supposed to find these stories, and when? Finding time somewhere between the school run and getting dinner on the table is ambitious at best. Usually, we just keep on keeping on.

And keeping on with the status quo is something that works for many families. But if you want to add another layer to the metaphorical onion of your child's identity, it's easier than you think.

Food is the easy way in

Here is the useful part. If there is any German in your family, even just a surname and a vague sense that a great-grandparent came over and then stopped mentioning it, you are already holding onto more material than you realise.

You do not have to invent a heritage activity or sign up for a course. Instead, you mostly have to cook something and talk while you do it.

Food is the easiest way in. You make the potato pancakes and try to call them by their German name (Reibekuchen), and have fun getting it wrong. Or it's a cake you learn to make for special occasions, or the Christmas biscuits that end in a mild argument about whether they are as good as somebody's grandmother used to make.

While your hands are busy, the stories naturally come out. Nobody sits a seven-year-old down for a formal lecture on the family. But a child stirring batter will absorb an astonishing amount before the cake hits the oven.

The December calendar helps for the same reason, since it is unusually well-stocked with small, specific things a family can do. St Nicholas leaves something in a shoe on the sixth, the Advent wreath gains a candle every Sunday, and Christmas Eve brings a whole extra day of festivities.

None of it calls for belief or fluency. You simply need a moment to come round and do a small thing when it does. Those small things done on the same date every year are how a child learns they belong to a particular family and not a generic one.

You need less than you think

A few things worth saying plainly, since they stop people before they start.

You do not need the language. Most of us don't have it anyway, and the food has very little use for it.

You don't even need to have set foot in Germany. Your story still means something even if it is made with the wrong flour in the wrong country and has been adapted three times since anyone last saw the original.

None of this is about authenticity in the traditional sense. It's about a child growing up with the feeling of coming from somewhere specific, told by someone who loves them, in a kitchen that smells of something.

So, back to the card in the drawer, the one you can't quite read. The reading was never the part that mattered. The card is a prompt. It's standing in the kitchen and saying, this came from Oma, and she came from there, and it's made us who we are today.

You do not need to decode the handwriting. Incomplete measurements and all, it will become something worthwhile to someone small enough to grow up remembering it.

If you want a hand knowing what to cook and when to do the small December things, that is most of what my Heimweh Letters are for. No extra time for heritage homework, just a helpful nudge to capture the right moment at the right time.

A Personal Note

The Rouladen I grew up with were my mother's first, and then slowly became mine when I had my own family. She offered help if something was going wrong. Otherwise, she admired whatever I had changed.

Her view was that recipes were never intended to be static. She altered many from her mom, as I've done with hers.

What brought all of this into focus for me was moving to Wales. I assimilated into Welsh and British life without noticing it was happening. It amazed me later how little effort it had taken by virtue of simply being here. Turns out, the environment does half of the work for free.

The parts of you that are not in the environment get no easy deal. My more obvious traits are the Canadian way I say "tomato" wrong (allegedly), my conviction that ice hockey is the best sport there is, and maple syrup going on things that do not need it.

Even those take work to pass to my kids over here, let alone bringing a German one along for the ride. But I want my kids to have the whole story of where they came from. Whatever small effort that takes, I am more than happy to make it.

If any of this struck a chord, passing down German heritage goes into the how of it in more detail.

did you know?

Over 800 million currywursts are eaten each year in Germany, and 70 million in Berlin alone.

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Words to live by

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy!

 - Anne Frank

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