Immigrants and their descendants incorporate other cultures into holiday celebrations

CEDAR RAPIDS — For many, it’s “the most wonderful time of the year.” But what exactly does that look like?

For many Americans, celebrating the holidays through food conjures similar ideas: turkeys or hams, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.

But for some, traditions look a little different in the kitchen.

Here’s how families from different cultural backgrounds fold their own heritages into holiday celebrations.

Cookies without borders

Cookies have been teaching Czech Republic immigrant Tom Slepicka new things ever since he started baking at 8 years old.

  Buy Photo

Some lessons have been more scientific, like the one he learned after leaving sugar out of a recipe as a child.

“Now, I know every cookie has sugar,” he said.

But others are culturally nourishing, no matter a recipe’s nutritional content. Born in 1984, when Czechoslovakia was still part of the Soviet Union, he has come to know cookies as a paragon of a holiday treat that is universal, yet diverse among nations.

“Cookies bring people together, (as well as) a lot of our ideas,” he said as he made walnut sandwich cookies — a recipe that is about equally Czech and Slovak — in his Cedar Rapids kitchen.

Compared with the United States, Czech Republic families make a large variety of cookie types. Some families start making them a month before Christmas and can squirrel away about 15 kinds for December celebrations.

  Buy Photo

“There, it’s more elaborate. Even people who consider themselves not being Czechs often go the extra mile,” Slepicka said. “The flavor and experience is different.”

Most adults wait until closer to Christmas to enjoy them, storing them in “cookie cans.” Some bring them out for special guests.

Slepicka’s grandmother, however, had to worry about preserving them for later with a hungry grandson around. She hid most of them, but would leave a few in easier-to-find spots so that Slepicka wouldn’t look too hard and find the big stash.

“I kind of drove her crazy,” he said.

Today, he channels that holiday spirit into sharing his heritage with others. In addition to writing a traditional cookie cookbook, the owner of online cooking platform CookingHub has started a new series of cooking classes this month featuring Czech and Slovak classics like walnut sandwich cookies, Moroccan cookies, Linzer tart cookies filled with jam, and vánočka, a Czech Christmas bread.

  Buy Photo

In the old country, cookies were for both tables and trees. And for this young chef, favorites like the kolekce, an edible chocolate ornament wrapped in foil, were motivations to get through dinner.

This season, he is teaching some of his favorite holiday dinner traditions too, like fried fish, Řízek schnitzel and pea soup.

Many traditions in the region, cemented in the 1950s, include recipes that favor lard instead of butter due to the availability of that era. Slovaks, for example, love a holiday brandy drink infused with bacon fat or butter fat.

Both cultures love an abundance of meat, but the formerly unified Czechoslovakia developed a tradition of one sweet meal each week to conserve meat during wartime shortages — a tradition Slepicka still observes today.

Some of Slepicka’s followers, like Americans who are several generations removed from the Czech Republic or Slovakia, follow his recipes to reconnect with their heritage. Even for Slepicka’s own young daughters, who are dual citizens, cooking is an easy gateway to stay connected.

  Buy Photo

After spending his early years as an immigrant struggling to culturally assimilate, keeping these traditions alive is important to him. Over time, he has realized being American and a Czech traditionalist can coexist.

“It’s even stronger every year realizing who I am and what it gives me,” he said. “I can be American, but always have these traditions. It’s about balancing that.”

Recipe

Walnut Cookie Sandwich with Rum Cream

Total cook time: 2 hours

Ingredients

Dough

2 cups walnuts, whole

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

3 sticks (12 ounces) butter, room temperature

Rum Cream

1 cup walnuts, whole

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

4 sticks (1 pound) butter, room temperature

2 tablespoons rum extract

Chocolate dip

3/4 cup unsalted butter

2 cups chocolate chips

2 tablespoons boiling water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Process 1 cup of walnuts in a food processor at high speed until a semi-fine texture is reached. Then, place them into a medium mixing bowl for a later step to decorate.

3. Make the dough by processing two more cups of walnuts in a food processor on high speed until a fine texture is reached. Place processed walnuts in a kitchen mixer with a flat beater attachment and the flour, confectioners’ sugar and butter. Process at slow speed until all ingredients are partially combined, then increase speed to medium-high and process until a dough is formed.

4. Fill walnut cookie molds with dough, slightly overfilling all compartments. Then, use an icing spatula to press the dough and smooth it cleanly over the top of the mold.

5. Create a little dent in each mold using a small teaspoon (about 1/4-inch deep with a diameter of about 1/2 inch in the center) in part of the cookies and smooth it over with an icing spatula. Then, carefully smooth the edges of the cookies.

6. Place molds on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. Leave molds on the baking sheet for at least five minutes of cooling, then allow cookies to cool completely. Then, remove cookies from molds.

7. Make the rum cream by processing the walnuts on high speed until a fine texture is reached. Place processed walnuts in a kitchen mixer with a whisk attachment and the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, butter and rum extract. Process at slow speed until all ingredients are partially combined, then increase speed to medium-high and process until a cream is formed.

8. Place rum cream into a pastry bag with a pastry tip. Do not refrigerate the cream, as it will harden.

9. Pipe cream into the dent of each cookie, and place another cookie on top to create a sandwich. Space between the inside edges of filled cookies should be less than one-quarter of an inch.

10. Place filled cookies in the refrigerator to cool for at least 30 minutes, or preferably overnight.

11. For the chocolate sauce, prepare a water bath by placing 1 inch of water in a medium pot and covering it with a medium bowl. Bring the water to a light simmer on medium heat, then lower the heat to low, and place ingredients into the top of the water bath. Stir and whisk until about half of the chocolate melts and the ingredients are partially dissolved. Then, remove the pot from the heat and keep stirring until chocolate fully melts and all ingredients combine.

12. Dip the wider end of each cookie into the chocolate coating, then into the ground walnuts prepared in step 2.

13. Refrigerate at least one hour, preferably overnight, before enjoying.

Source: Tom Slepicka

  Buy Photo

Hungering for heritage

For the last 15 years, Cedar Rapids resident Zhen E Rammelsberg has been connecting with a culture that she was not raised with.

Raised in Cedar Rapids by white parents, the Korean adoptee grew up in Iowa in the 1970s, a time when hundreds of thousands of South Korean children were adopted by Americans.

Many landed in the Midwest. And throughout her childhood, the prevalent mindset for adoptive families was complete assimilation — not keeping a child connected to their cultural roots.

For most of Rammelsberg’s life, that worked. But when her adult son started checking the “Asian” box to indicate his race on college applications, she had a realization.

“He had a role model, and I didn’t have anything like that,” she told The Gazette. “If he’s cool with being Asian, why am I not?”

  Buy Photo

As her son got married to another Korean adoptee and had children of his own, they wanted to make sure the next generation knew Korean traditions. Today, they celebrate both American Thanksgiving and its Korean equivalent, Chuseok (추석.)

Food, she said, is a great gateway to explore culture. But when you’re an adoptee, it’s different.

“If you didn’t see me and I just made the food I grew up with … you’d think I was a Midwest housewife — pot roast on Sunday, tater tot hot dish on Monday,” she said. “I remember the first time I went to a Korean grocery store. I didn’t know what 90 percent of the stuff was. I would have to work really hard to cook it.”

Over time, she started adapting Korean recipes to her own Midwestern palate.

“It’s still a Korean dish. It’s made by a Korean, and I am this version of Korean,” she said.

Each holiday season, they make a Seoul-Sik Bulgogi with banchan (반찬) side dishes like purple rice, Songpyeon (송편) half-moon rice cakes and Japchae (잡채) glass noodles.

“It does feel like it ties us back to my Korean heritage,” she said. “It’s important to me. There was a whole bunch of culture that was lost.”

Recipe

Seoul-Sik Bulgogi

Ingredients

2 ounces dangmyeon (Korean glass noodles)

1 2/3 cups fresh Asian pear juice

1/2 cup fresh Fuji apple juice

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup fresh onion juice

2 green onions, finely chopped

3 tablespoons mirin

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons pineapple juice

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 teaspoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

1. Cover the dangmyeon with 1 inch of water in a large bowl and soak at room temperature for at least three hours or overnight. Drain noodles and rinse thoroughly, then set aside.

2. For the marinade, whisk all ingredients together in a large bowl until the sugar is dissolved. Separate the slices of beef and pat dry with paper towels. Add the beef to the marinade and toss gently until thoroughly coated. Cover and marinate for two hours.

3. Add the beef and marinade to a 12-inch wide pot or skillet, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally to break up the slices of beef. Stir in the carrot, mushrooms, yellow onion, green onions, and dangmyeon and return to a boil. Cook until the vegetables and noodles are softened and the beef is cooked through, about one minute. Serve.

Source: Zhen E Rammelsberg

Serving others for the holidays

Phoebe Rios, whose family owns Rio Burritos, does not celebrate the holidays. For most of her years running a restaurant since 2002, her family closed for Thanksgiving and Christmas, like most restaurants.

But last year, they stayed open after realizing how packed the Chinese restaurant was on Christmas Day. Not because they saw an opportunity to make money, but because they saw a human need.

“We would always close because we thought people aren’t going to be able to drop in. Last year when we opened up, we were like, ‘wow.’ We realized that’s not the case,” Rios said. “Everybody’s situation is different. Everybody’s family dynamic is different.”

  Buy Photo

On a typical busy weekend, they serve 150 to 200 plates. Last Christmas, they served over 300 plates — busier than Cinco de Mayo.

But between brisk business, they had tender realizations of why people chose to dine in that day.

“There was one particular incident where there was an older couple, they must’ve been in their 80s,” Rios said. “They came in, ate, and she grabbed my hand.”

“We didn’t have anywhere to go,” the woman told her. “Having the place open for us so we could enjoy a meal together and be able to do something out of the house — I’m so grateful.”

Many customers are from out of town, vising family in the hospital. Others are medical staff or workers who can’t take the holiday off as they serve others.

“I didn’t realize how impactful or important it was,” Rios said. “You don’t know what everybody’s situation is, what everybody’s family is going through.”

After that, they decided to remain open for holidays every year. This year, they are bringing more family in to help serve the need at the restaurant.

She said customers have appreciated being able to eat in a clean environment, see smiling faces and sit in an environment where others are laughing and having fun — the same kind of reason many diners seek a restaurant experience on other days of the year.

For those hoping for a taste of Mexican holiday tradition, staples like tamales and specials like champurrado are on the menu.

Recipe

Champurrado Mexican Hot Chocolate

Ingredients

1 cup Maseca

5 cloves

1 star anise

1 piloncillo (or 1 cup brown sugar)

3 cinnamon sticks

5 cups milk

1 can evaporated milk

1 cup warm water

2 cups boiling water

2 rounds Mexican chocolate (e.g., Abuelita or Ibarra)

Instructions

1. In a saucepan, toast the Maseca flour over medium heat until slightly browned (approximately 3-4 minutes.) Stir continuously to prevent burning. Once toasted, set aside.

2. Prepare the flavor base. In a pot, bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add the cloves, star anise, piloncillo (or 1 cup brown sugar,) cinnamon sticks and Mexican chocolate. Stir well to combine the ingredients and cook on low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. After 5 minutes, add the evaporated milk and regular milk to the pot. Keep cooking on low to medium heat.

4. While the milk mixture is cooking, mix the toasted Maseca with 1 cup of warm water in a bowl. Stir thoroughly to ensure there are no lumps.

5. Pour the Maseca mixture into the champurrado mixture and bring it to a light boil, stirring constantly.

6. Taste your champurrado and add more sugar if desired.

Source: Phoebe Rios

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.

Get the latest restaurant news, food reviews and insider tips from the Chew on This newsletter.