A story about THE HARVEST TIME SOUP

Maureen gave me a kiss on the cheek today and told me something very embarrassing. She said my ear smelled funny. Does anyone else suffer with E.E.O Embarrassing Ear Odor?

Today was shopping day. I spent part of the morning clipping coupons and searching the internet for coupon deals. It’s not so much about saving the money as it is the hunt in finding the coupons. I just love hearing the cashier tell me at the end of our grocery checkout that I saved so and so amount of money. Must be the German heritage in me or how I calculate the saving into how many beers I can buy.

My computer’s monitor screen must be busted. When I turned it on today it just shows an all white screen, I don’t think this is a racial thing on its part, just that it’s broke.

It’s getting close to harvest time here in Michigan. Time for me to start thinking about making that old harvest time family recipe, that’s been handed down from generation to generation. It’s a traditional Polish harvest time soup called Csvhka (Pronounced Csvhka). The soup is made with fresh picked string beans, celery, potatoes, carrots and peas, all mixed in a broth of heavy cream. It’s delicious. It’s also a Polish tradition that the first bowl of this soup be eaten in a very particular way by the winner of a very special Polish contest.

To determine the winner of the “First Bowl” we play a Polish game named “Spitzer”. Spitzer is a card game that involves two decks of cards, a rolling pin and a slab of uncooked beacon. It’s an extremely complicated game where during each hand you don’t know who your partner is till the game is nearly over. In this game the seven of diamonds is the top power card and you do a lot of “smearing” with the other players. It’s takes about an hour and a half to explain all the rules and about three minutes to play, so I’ll just continue from where the winner of the game gets to eat the “First Bowl”.

Traditionally the honor of “First Bowl” starts with a person standing on their head. Now it’s okay to have your feet leaning up against a barn wall for support. If a barn wall is not available, then it’s alright to have someone hold your feet, as long as that person is over the age of 65. Don’t worry about the age requirements I will explain the reasons later. Okay, once the person is standing on their head and supported properly, they are then given a two inch wide wooden spoon and the “First Bowl” is placed on the ground near their forehead. The winner of “First Bowl” then takes one hand and dips the spoon into the broth and sips the first tasting of Csvhka. If by chance the winner of “First Bowl” only has one arm, like my Uncle Eugene, it is proper etiquette to allow the runner up of the “Spitzer” game to ladle the “First Bowl” into the “First Bowl” winner’s mouth.

I know that this explanation of “First Bowl” is long and boring but stay with me cause I am sure you’ll be wanting to start this tradition within your own family.

After the “First Bowl” has been completely consumed, the winner is then returned to the upright position. At this time the youngest member of the family gathering, pulls out his/her beer bong, opens two cans (Must be cans) of P.B.R. beer (For the uneducated: Pabst Blue Ribbon) then shotguns the cans in rapid succession into the beer bong as the winner of “First Bowl” chugs as much beer as they can. Now this is very important: any beer that is dribbled or left over from the beer bonging has to be collected in a glass Mason jar and saved for the baptism of the next child born to the family of the “First Bowl” winner. Don’t ask me why, it’s just a tradition and traditions don’t need to have any reasoning. Kind of like Social Security.

To continue. After the beer bonging, the winner of “First Bowl” then is handed a “Butting Stick”. The wooden butting stick needs to be at least three feet long and one inch in diameter. We have found that it is best not to sharpen either end of this stick because now the “First Bowl” winner places one end of the stick on the ground and their forehead on the other.

I know you’re thinking that the “First Bowl” winner then starts to quickly walk around in a circle five times with their head on the “Butting Stick” and you’re right. The history of spinning around with a stick to your forehead happens to come from the “First Harvest Soup” tradition.

After the spinning with the “Butting Stick” the “First Bowl” winner then tries to run through a double lined gauntlet made up of the rest of the family members. Each member of the family has the option of 1) smacking the “First Bowl” winner in the stomach with a tree limb no larger than the handlers left shin bone. 2) Pleating them with rotting Polish style progies. 3) Smearing them with “Pigs in the blanket” (A Polish dish made with cabbage stuffed with either ground pork, ground beef or ground road kill).

Once the “First Bowl” winner brakes through the end of the gauntlet they then find themselves face to face with the open door of an old-time outhouse. They enter the outhouse and because of all the trials they’ve just been through they start to puke their guts out. After their stomach has been emptied it is their job to report to the others that the “Harvest Time Soup” is as good tasting coming up as it is going down. At which time the soup is deemed fit’en to eat and the rest of the family can dig in.

I am sure that in the old days, stories about “The Day of the Harvest Soup” were repeated over and over again while sitting with the family in front of the fireplace, drinking beers, on cold winter nights. And that their every thought throughout the year were filled with the possibilities of becoming next year’s lucky “First Soup” winner, just as they do with me today. Good Times.

P.S. I’m not really sure how this Harvest time tradition started with our family, specially knowing that none of us are Polish.

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