Poland is gray. A gray, cold, and beautiful country. The food is heavy, salty, and serious. Made for people to survive on rather than enjoy. Or so I’ve been told. My Babcia (Grandmother in Polish), often tells me of her childhood when I see her. Of the life she had before her, my Dziadek (Grandfather in Polish), and my father immigrated to America in the 1980’s. While my immediate family doesn’t see her too often, we keep her traditions. One of which being Oranges.
Back when Poland was occupied by the USSR, present daily commodities were past luxuries. I remember her telling me that once when it was her turn to wait in line for her family’s ration of grapes, she was accidently given two bags instead of one. And instead of fessing up or sharing the surplus with her family, she went to a park bench and ate the entire extra bag herself. In one sitting. She told no one for years. She giggles when she tells this story like a schoolgirl telling her friends she kissed a boy under the bleachers. As if she still feels the rush of adrenaline rebellion so often causes. But fruit was scarce then. Exotic fruit even more so, the country not being rich enough to export them regularly.
Supposedly, every December, my Babcia would come home from school one day, along with her many older brothers, and would smell something. Their noses were sharp enough to notice an underlying citrus beneath the smell of cabbage and beets and stew. Oranges. Excited, they would run to their mother and ask about them. My great-grandmother lectured them to practice patience. Ignoring her words the children would search their apartment for the rare treat. Despite it being four children and two adults sharing a tiny one-bedroom apartment, they never found them.
On Wigilia, Poland’s Christmas celebration which takes place on Christmas Eve, their wishes would be granted. Once the first star was visible, their mother would appear, her hands behind her back. The children would stare in anticipation as she revealed their gifts. One orange for each of them. My Babcia says she can still taste the fruit as she did when she was a child. Bright, refreshing, and juicy. The vibrance of it causing their mouths to pucker up, its sweet tanginess being a flavor profile absent from their lives every other day of the year.
My siblings and I were never taught how to speak Polish, my father claiming he didn’t even think to do so. But we celebrate Wigilia. On Christmas Eve we are dressed well. Eating Pierogies and Fish and Barcht. And when evening closes in on the day, we look out the frozen windows in anticipation. Once the first star appears, we each take an orange for ourselves and eat it. As my father did, and his mother did, and her mother before her. And then we make our way to our dining table, breaking oplatki, and enjoying the rest of our evening warm in our homes, with plenty of Oranges left on our counter.
I know almost nothing of my future children. I don’t know what their names are. I don’t know what gender they will be, where they will live, or how they will be raised. But I know that on Christmas Eve, they will be eating oranges.
