Great Grandma's Geese -- creative nonfiction

Poppy Seed Kolaches

image from laurassweetspot.com

I grew up among story tellers. On holidays they’d meet at the dinner table. The men and big boys got the table first and had first shot at the food. When they cleared out, the women would sit down. Us kids either ate with the women or we had our own table off to the side, depending on just how many people were there. But everybody told stories – men, women, and children. Ours was an equal opportunity story-telling family.

Now that I think about it, they also told stories out on the front porch in the evening before the mosquitos got too thick. And in the cellar during those scary Oklahoma storms.

Those stories were true, or mostly anyway. They would begin more or less like this one. “Did I ever tell you about your Great Grandma Hrdlicka’s geese?”

Our Great Grandma Hrdlicka – or Grandma or Mother-in-law, depending on the generation telling the story – was Bohemian. And I don’t mean she wore racy clothes or threw wild parties awash in alcohol. Though beer was much more accepted by many in my family than by most of our Oklahoma neighbors.

Both she and my great grandfather came to this country from Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Kolaches were a common holiday food. They’re a little like Danish, but heavier. Sometimes they’re filled with prunes and sweetened cottage cheese or cherry pie filling or apricot preserves. My particular favorite is poppy seed filling.

From what I understand, Bohemia was a mountainous country that got pretty cold in the winter. Probably still does. Oklahoma may not be particularly mountainous, but it sure gets cold in the winter. When this story happened, it was well before central heat. In fact when I was a kid, it was well before central heat.

But I digress.

In my great grandmother’s time, they grew most of the things they needed including the fruit and poppies for kolachen. They also kept geese for their feathers to make feather beds and meat for the table.

One late-summer day she found her geese scattered dead around the pond. Something had to be done. The geese had not been dead long. They were still warm to the touch. They had no wounds and had that morning seemed perfectly healthy. She had no idea what could have killed them. She couldn’t take a chance on cooking them for the family. But nothing was allowed to go to waste. So she plucked them.

That evening when my great grandfather came in from the field, there was a gaggle of confused, naked geese running around. They apparently liked poppy seeds, too.