“any resemblance to cardboard is purely coincidental”
For those of you who many not read every post and every comment (I know, I skip over most of Floyd and JohnFN’s stuff too) you may have missed a comment from trzupr to one of his seventeen siblings regarding something called, “oplatek.” Being a Polish word there is absolutely no association with how “oplatek” is spelled and how it is pronounced. You say it, “Oh-pwat-kee,” with the emphasis on the “pwat.” I know, I know, sounds delicious, doesn’t it?
Guess what? It’s not. Not at all. Imagine an 8 1/2″ x 11″ communion wafer imprinted with an image of a Polish Christmas scene (Shepherds bringing a kielbasa to the manger, Joseph screwing in red and green Christmas lights while 13 angels turn the ladder, Mary pulling a bubba cart to the grocers to buy a Christmas cabbage…).
Now imagine eating about four of them in a fifteen minute period. With nothing to drink. There is a reason communion wafers come in little, tiny circles and there’s a reason we wash them down with a big gulp of wine at Mass (well, O.K., maybe several reasons). They are not particularly yummy.
To give you an idea of how oplatek works, this website gets it right. And that’s pretty much what Christmas Eve was like with my mom’s parents and siblings, right down to the fish, spaghetti and empty chair. And you know what? Those are all nice traditions. But the oplatek?!
Every Christmas Eve my dad, sister and I dreaded the oplatek portion of the evening. Everyone gathers in the room where the meal will be served. The host or hostess passes around a plate full of oplatek and everyone takes a piece. Then you take your oplatek and offer it to the person next to you, who in turn offers you their oplatek, as you wish each other something nice while breaking off a piece from the other’s oplatek. Then you have to eat the oplatek! Then you have to hug or kiss the person! If you remember being a kid you remember how much fun kissing your Aunts was, and if you know anything about genetics and Poland, you know that Polish Aunts can grow quite large. Yes, eating dry, unleaven wafers that literally taste like plastic and getting your cheek pinched by your Aunt’s pudgy, Polish fingers while you close your eyes and peck her cheek, hoping she doesn’t present the side of her face with the hairy mole. Merry Christmas! It just doesn’t get any better than that!
So my dad, sister and I started playing a little, annual game. With practice you can control the size of the oplatek piece that breaks off when you’re breaking someone else’s, or they’re breaking yours. The smaller the piece you break, the less you have to eat, and the larger the piece they break off the sooner your oplatek is gone, and you’re done. Thus began our annual race to see who could run out of oplatek while simultaneously ingesting the smallest amount of oplatek. This worked fine with most everyone else, who were more than happy to get big pieces of oplatek, but when I would go head to head against my sister or dad it was a battle to see who would get the upper hand. When both are trying to break the wafer so that the other gets the biggest portion it becomes a battle of angles, leverage, finger and wrist strength, agility and lightning quick reflexes. I am a true, oplatek Master!
Wesolych Swiat and have fun, Trzuprs!
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That’s one of the funniest things I’ve read all week. I must say with a shamed face that we Norwegians have nothing to compare. Such a custom would involve actual physical contact with someone else, a thing to be avoided at all costs.
For which I’m grateful.
Funny and true, Lars. Interesting how a culture’s customs reflect the “nature” of certain peoples, and often that nature is similar to the local climate of the culture. Italians and Spaniards are always kissing, hugging, holding hands. I believe some Teutonic and Nordic couples do kiss, but not before having at least two children together.
Thanks for sharing, Rufus. Nothing to compare at all in my family. We weren’t very ethnic. Just some German heritage that would be observed by eating pork and kraut on New Year’s Day.
My family is also German but we had no real old country customs, though there was one year where we took over the home of the Polish family next door. That’s kind of a German tradition.
Heh! Were you bearing pigs in a blanket?
For the uninitiated, pigs in a blanket are simply pork sometimes with beef and rice wrapped in a sour cabbage head. It sounds really gross but I’ve grown to love it over the years. There are some American versions of the pig that are (ugh) hot dogs wrapped in a Pillsbury crescent roll.
Seriously, the more I learn about the Poles the more I respect them and their culture. Sure I heard Polish jokes all of my life that later became “certain ethnic” jokes. Today I think the Poles kick arse.
The College Widow,
If you are too new to know, Truzperkzwyzyk and sometime contributor Stosh are both first generation Polacks. Click on Rich’s name in the margins to find some great posts about his old man.
Galumpki! (Who knows how you spell it, CW, but that’s what you’re describing.)
I’ve never heard of oplatek…
(snort)
That got a giggle.
We’re a little German too.
“We’re a little German too.”
As I like to say, “Mrs. Firefly is 100% German, except for once a week when she has a little Pole in her.”
O.K., yes, I have been drinking, a lot, but I think the Little Fireflies are now all old enough that there is nothing tricky to assemble this Christmas Eve; no forklifts or blowtorches involved. I think I’m good to go.
Hitler: “Men, we’re going to march into Poland and conquer it. Pack a lunch, we’ll be home by nightfall.”
I’m half Polish, Mrs. Firefly is the daughter of German immigrants. After 19 years of marriage she still busts up laughing anytime she sees me changing a light-bulb.
I have waited until I was safely ensconced in safety of Casa Trzupr before responding to this slander of one of the most sacred of all Polish Christmas traditions. But this outrage will not go unchallenged!
Rufus’ objections to oplatek appear to be centered around the fact that he is unable to masticate the wafers. We can only conclude that the Firefly gene pool short circuits when it comes to generating salivary glands. The amount of saliva necessary to chew through a case of oplatek is roughly equivalent to the quantity necessary to consume a saltine.
Because we, in the Trzupr family, embraced oplatek rather than running in fear from it, I have a much different perspective. Ruf accurately describes the sharing the wafer ritual, but the goal of the ritual was reversed in our house. The point of the game was to accumulate as much oplatek as quickly as possible, while defending your own supply. If one could catch a sibling unaware, you could score 95% of his oplatek supply, which served two purposes:
1) It got you more oplatek.
2) It left them with almost nothing to share.
The latter part of that formula was as important as the former. It was downright embarrassing if you had to face the next exchange with a tiny, 2 mm x 2 mm piece of wafer that could only then be sub-divided in crumb-sized portions. And God-forbid that this happened to you if dad was still in line for your exchange. His “good God – I raised a moron” looks of disgust could wilt a drill sergeant.
So, in summary, oplatek rocks – assuming you are actually capable of producing spit. And, judging by the puddle of same that somehow finds its way onto my side of the bed each morning, I most definitely am, er, capable of doing that thing.
“The point of the game was to accumulate as much oplatek as quickly as possible”
My condolences.
Hey all. Just writing from a bar here in La Crosse and thinking this is hilarious.
It’s snowing and the river is beautiful! Rich at least it’s not Lute Fisk.
Merry Christmas Stephanie and Rudy!
Steph – Glad to know that you are enjoying the hospitality of the midwest. Sorry about the O’Hare experience. As my “home airport” I have a certain affection for the airfield formerly known as Orchard Park, but I know – and understand why – few of my fellow travelers share that emotion. Have a beer for me honey!
Cool thing that happened was the crew for the flight to
La Crosse did a great job. I will explain all when I
have time. It does involve engine malfunction and free booze.
The thing I like about discussions like this is the
traditions behind food for certain holidays.
The Poles don’t have a monopoly on aunts with hairy moles. One of my father’s Italian aunts had a pin cushion on the side of her chin that felt like getting vaccinated every time she forced a kiss on you. She probably went to the grave with the entire family’s DNA still on those mole hairs. I had my fill of communion wafers over the years … oplatek sounds like a damn nightmare. Would it be a sin to add a little vanilla or anise extract and powdered sugar?
WESOLYCH SWIAT!!!!!
Can’t wait for our oplatek tonight–our 22 year-old hopes we have leftovers to snack on all night!
LOL!!!! My brothers and I did the same – we all know exactly how to snap the wrist so the unsuspecting are then holding a big piece of your oplatek and you don’t have to eat it all at the end (we don’t have a dog or farm animals). My mother is disgusted that her now middle-aged children don’t fully embrace the tradition, but…hey!!
As an impressionable young boy of German heritage, suffice to say that the “aunt” experience was always one of putting up with massive amounts of German sausage greased lips, wet with large dollops of the saliva that it takes for them to speak German properly, pressed against my once supple cheeks, which were still red with embarassment from being drug to said lips through some of the most massive cleavage on planet earth!
And if you think that is a long sentence, you should see some of them in German!
Can I say “cleavage” here at 3D?
Cleavage is ok. Man-boobs, not so much.