The Famous Christmas Pickle and other myths

[muckefuck]

Whipping through the Loop yesterday, I was on a mission to buy three things: Two Christmas ornaments and a leather-bound calendar for Nuphy. Alas, I ended up 1 for 3: Käthe Wohlfahrt was sold out of the droll Santa-Bathing-With-Reindeer figurines (as a multiply-pierced blond Teuton helped me determine) and no one at Fields knew a thing about Letts of London or their pocket calendars. But I have my Christmas pickle!

The booth now has signs over the bin of Christmas pickles calling them "The Famous Christmas Pickle" and "Our Number One Bestseller!" Many of them have little booklets attached recounting the story of the Christmas pickle, which starts out "It is an old German custom..." When I got to the counter, I said, "Gestehen Sie mir etwas: Das ist kein deutscher Brauch!" ("Confess something to me: That's no German custom!") "Doch, doch!" ("On the contrary!") said one of the young elves, "Sind Sie mal in Thüringen gewesen?" ("Have you ever been to Thuringia?") When I told him that my Thuringian friends have never heard of the "Weihnachtsgurke", he said that it was current in the area of Lauscha. At that point, my purchase was wrapped to go, so I made my parting shot, "Die spinnen, die Lauchaer!" ("They're crazy, those Lauschaers!") [Update: I told this story to my Thuringian coworker and she responded, "Mein Vater ist in Lauscha zur Schule gegangen!" ("My father went to school in Lauscha!")]

If you're interested in finding out more about the Great Christmas Pickle Controversy, you can read the quotes and follow the links in my previous post on the subject (although it's in German, they're all in English--save the story of St. Nicholas rescuing the three dead boys in the pickle barrel, of which there are many English versions on the web.). mollpeartree was so fascinated by the concept of faux tradition that she asked for more examples of customs that began in the U.S. and were only later exported to what Americans consider their country of origin. So far, we have:

• The Christmas pickle, which seems to have originated among the German-American community, but now may be catching on in places like Lauscha.
• Saganaki, which was invented in Chicago's Greektown, but is now apparently available in tourist spots in Greece.
• What bunj calls "the classic answer": Fortune cookies. Invented in San Francisco's Chinatown, now available in Hong Kong and perhaps elsewhere.

mollpeartree suggested "pizza", by which she clearly means American-style pizza, which I think is finally available in Italy now. There's got to be more than that. Are tiki bars catching on in Polynesia? Are there any Africans who celebrate Kwanzaa? Do Germans eat German chocolate cake? And where did bubble tea start anyway--here or Asia?

Comments

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

I'm told by Asian sources that bubble tea started in Taiwan as boba nai cha, and I first started seeing it around here about 3 years ago in restaurants owned and patronized heavily by Asians.