Carp, Catholicism and Culture Clash

Carp, Catholicism and Culture Clash – A collection of Millennium Mishaps.

Ever since he swept into my school cafeteria dressed like a film noire detective back in 1998, I knew I was going to marry Eoin and have his babies. He took a little longer to come around to the idea, but by the end of 1999 we were engaged and facing our first major dilemma – whose family to spend Christmas with.

Only it turned out it wasn’t really our decision at all – because I hadn’t reckoned with the persuasive power of my future mother-in-law.

I was rather intimidated by her, for all her tiny stature. For one thing, she was always incredibly nice to me. Coming from a British family that shows affection in the form of insults, this was unnerving.

For another thing, she’s Polish. Christmas is hugely important to Poles, and no chance in hell was her 18-year-old son going to miss spending the Millennium with his family. So she booked us tickets to Poland and that was that.

It took me half the journey to figure out how to pronounce the name of the city we were headed to – Sczcecin. The train ride from Berlin was unlike any I had ever imagined – snow covered fields, a double-decker train and soldiers armed with machine guns checking our passports.

“Don’t make any stupid jokes, I know what you’re like when you’re nervous,” Eoin told me as a german shepherd dog thrust its muzzle between my knees and sniffed aggressively. “Just smile and leave the talking to me.” Sound advice as the guards clearly weren’t blessed with a sense of humour.

I had been warned that the cold in Poland is unlike the cold back in Blighty. ‘Brrrr!’ doesn’t cover it. Leaving the station we were hit with a blast of Arctic wind that simultaneously gave me brain freeze and an asthma attack. Good times. Eoin’s Uncle looked at my pathetic wool coat and shook his head sadly. So much for first impressions.

The first meal was a culture shock. A steaming bowl of bright red soup appeared in front of me, and a dozen relatives watched eagerly as I took the first mouthful. And almost spat it across the room. Borscht – beetroot soup. Over two decades of marriage I have almost grown to like the stuff, but it was not love at first sight. And I have never been good at hiding my emotions.

Grimacing like a baby who’s just sucked on its first lemon, everyone laughed at me. Luckily there was boiled potatoes with most meals or I’d have starved to death.

I quickly grew to understand why the Poles don’t take milk in their tea. It’s so damned cold that you don’t need the milk – by the time it’s in the cup it’s cool enough to drink. I was used to a nice strong mug of Yorkshire gold – their Lady Grey tasted like pot pouri to me.

The next big shock was realizing that there were no bedrooms. It turns out when you have three generations all living in a narrow three-storey townhouse, beds are a waste of precious space. Everyone had futons and sofabeds. I felt terrible when I was told I would be taking Eoin’s Babcia’s room – until I realized it just meant swapping one sofa for another.

I was excited to meet the family pets. Basil was a small brown mutt of unknown heritage, with greying whiskers and a low tummy. I adored him.

"And what is the cat's name?" I asked.

"Katek," they replied. Just cat. Although later that week when Katek managed to hook a claw into the joint of beef marinading on the kitchen counter and helpfully dropped it down to Basil, a willing partner in crime, I did get to hear the cat's full name, and also my first Polish swearwords.

Over the following few days I was given a tour of the city – well, of the churches. Poland runs on tea, vodka and Catholicism. I witnessed a rather confusing mass where the priest washed the feet of a dozen elderly men that looked as though they’d never heard of nail clippers. I saw a thousand nativities. I shivered constantly. I went to have a hot bath only to find the tub occupied by a massive carp, swimming in the murky water like some prehistoric monster. It was all rather bewildering.

By Christmas Eve I was more than ready for the feast I had been promised. 12 dishes would be served as soon as the first star appeared in the sky. I was so hungry I could eat a whole turkey.

Except there was no turkey. Christmas Eve is a fast day in the Catholic faith. That means no meat. And a feast with no meat means… fish. Fishy fishy fish fish. Fish in every dish. Pickled herring in horseradish, pickled herring with sour cream and apples. Carp served in aspic like some 1970’s gelatinous nightmare, surrounded by boiled egg and carrots. A sad end for the bathtub beastie. I think I was almost as upset about it as he was.

I don’t mean to sound picky, and I’ve enjoyed food from all around the world. But my two least favourite foods are pickles and fish.

Not to worry, there was soup. Oh, more Borscht. Pierogies looked nice, until I realized they were filled with pickled cabbage. I piled my plate with boiled potatoes and concentrated on not pulling a face whenever I tried a new dish. I wanted to be a good guest, but the food was a real struggle for me.

Finally it was time for dessert. A delicious looking swiss roll was presented – swirled sponge and what was surely a gooey chocolate filling. I took a massive bite in my excitement. It felt like my mouth was full of grit. Not chocolate, poppyseeds. Makowietz would continue to cruelly tempt me at every gathering for the whole trip – always disguised as delicious cakes, always tasting of wet sand.

As the feast wound down, there was a knock at the door. The young cousins leapt up excitedly – Santa had arrived! I was confused. It was Christmas Eve – Christmas wasn’t till tomorrow. Maybe Santa got confused.

Outside the door were bags of gifts. The kids brought them inside and handed them out to everyone – to my surprise I received a beautiful blue velvet scarf which I still have to this day. Soon there was tissue paper everywhere. I asked Eoin why Santa had delivered everything, including the gifts we all bought for each other. Apparently that is just the custom in Poland. Everything gets opened before midnight mass.

The mass itself was beautiful. We spilled out into the frosty wonderland, hearts full of Christmas spirit. Not to mention vodka – you have to keep warm somehow.

Over the days between Christmas and New Year we explored the city by ourselves. I bought a beautiful grey coat with a fake fur collar that was so soft and realistic. Eoin’s family all admired it appreciatively.

“Lovely, it’s fox!” They told me.

I shook my head, assured them it was fake fur, I’d checked in the store. They read the label to me, and watched me turn pale in horror as I realized I had indeed purchased real fur.

“Not to worry, it died of old age,” Eoin’s Uncle teased. “It’s dying wish was to become your coat.”

At least it kept the cold out, despite my pangs of guilt.

Eoin and his ten-year-old brother Ed were more interested in buying bb guns. There was all sorts of realistic-looking weapons in the market, and we played with them one snowy afternoon.

“Never aim a gun at a person!” Eoin told me as he caught Ed and I in a fiery gun battle behind the sofas.

“Relax, it’s been empty for ages!” I scoffed, pointing it at his brother and squeezing the trigger. Pow! A bb pellet pinged out and hit him on the finger.

“See? There can always be one lodged in the barrel!” Eoin said as his brother tried not to cry. To his credit, he didn’t snitch on me to his parents, and I think now he’s 35 he’s probably forgiven me. Not my finest moment.

One day, after what felt like a week of starvation, I begged Eoin to take me to the Pizza Hut we had seen in the town. We were poor college students, but it turned out the prices were so cheap we could buy a three course meal for the price of a medium pizza back home. We gorged ourselves to bursting point and headed back to the house.

“Surprise!” Eoin’s Babcia announced, ushering us both into the dining room, where a large terrine of steaming dumplings sat waiting for us. “I know you aren’t so fond of some of our food, so I made this special dish for you!”

Nobody else was there – it really was just for the two of us. She pulled up a chair at the table and sat there beaming at us expectantly. Of course we couldn’t confess to the sneaky meal now, not when she’d gone to so much effort. So we ate – and ate, and ate. I have never been so full in my life.

The next morning we went to a grocery store to purchase gifts for our friends back home. Eoin’s cousins Bartek and Tomek came along to help. They watched in amusement as we walked down the aisle of vodkas trying to pick which ones to buy. We selected a reasonably priced bottle and Tomek shook his head and put it back.

“That is too expensive! Buy what we drink…” He led us over to the cleaning product aisle and found a bottle of what appeared to be neat ethanol.

“Isn’t Tomek 12?” I whispered to Eoin, who nodded.

“Mix it with orange juice and it tastes fine,” Bartek added with all the worldly experience of a 14-year-old going on 40.

Bartek owns his own bar in Kracow now. I can only hope he has moved on from the cleaning fluid cocktails of his youth. Needless to say, we decided not to try and kill our friends back home, settling for some prettily labelled bottles that were only 80% proof.

Our trip was drawing to an end. It was the night the whole world had been waiting for – the end of a Millenia. Nobody knew if we would wake up to see another day, but one thing was for sure, everyone around the globe meant to go out in style.

We had been invited to a party at some family friend’s house. “Should we bring drinks?” I asked, but was assured everyone had paid $10 for the host to buy all the alcohol. Dressed in our finest we arrived to a bustling party and were shown to the kitchen.

“The drinks are in here!” The host said, opening the fridge door wide.

Row upon row of vodka filled the fridge, like a Smirnoff advert. No sad wilting veggies in the drawer, no eggs in the egg tray – just wall to wall vodka.

“Do you have any mixers?” Eoin asked hopefully.

The host looked confused. “There is coke for the children,” he told us, pointing at one 2 litre bottle on the counter.

Unsurprisingly in no time at all everyone was completely pissed.

Eoin and I sat on the sofa, watching England celebrate the Millennium on the television. It was still an hour to go for us, and a bit surreal to see the firework displays over Big Ben and know all our friends were off having incredible experiences without us. Little did we know what was yet to come.

As midnight approached we were ushered out into the back garden, a long narrow grassy area descending to a small stream, backing onto another house opposite. The countdown began…

10, 9, 8… everyone cheered and hugged and kissed as the New Year began, and I found myself passed down a line of sozzled and handsy old men who definitely took advantage of the cheek kissing to grab my bum. As I found myself back in Eoin’s arms the first fireworks lit up the sky around us…

Not above us, around us! Rockets whizzed past our heads, fiery sparks trailing a path as they whistled gleefully towards the neighbours across the stream. They, in turn, seemed to take great pleasure in firing their own artillery back at us. It was deafening, smoky and utterly terrifying. How nobody died I will never know – people lighting fireworks and holding them in their hands like cartoon bad guys holding up bombs, then tossing them as hard as they could. We pushed our way through the mayhem and took shelter in the house. Definitely a Millennium we would not soon forget.

Finally it was time to go back home to England. We made our farewells, Eoin’s Babcia handing me a giftbag of custard packets because we had discovered that I liked Polish custard. Mostly because it contained neither fish or pickles. For two weeks they had taken me into their family and treated me as an honoured guest, and I was so grateful for the experiences and kindness they had shared with me. But I was ready to go.

Our train arrived in Berlin the evening before our flight, and we were too poor for a hotel room, so we spent a long and uncomfortable night sleeping in the airport behind a potted palm tree. As the security gates opened we were first in line for the bag check.

Eoin was nervous. He’d bought a 4ft long Kaleshnikov made of rubber to use in our LARP games back at college. It was too big for his rucksack, the long blade of the bayonette poking up through the side conspicuously. 9-11 was a year away and things were generally more relaxed back then.

The Guard frowned, gesturing at our bags and talking loudly to the x-ray machine attendant. He turned to us.

“You have a gun in your bag,” he said to Eoin, who was half asleep and stumbling to keep up with the German.

“Yes, yes – it’s a toy gun. See?” He bent the blade to show it was soft.

The guards got angry. At least I think they did – it can be hard to tell with German. “You have a gun in your bag!” They insisted, and this went on for a few minutes, Eoin trying to insist it was a harmless rubber prop and the guards taking everything out of the bag and scattering it everywhere.

A box appeared at the bottom of the bag, and the penny dropped.

“Oh, THAT gun!” I said, blushing as I remembered the gift I’d bought for one of our friends. “It’s not real, it’s a replica.” No wonder they were so cross – the gun was an exact replica of an antique pistol, and though it was incapable of firing a bullet it sure did look like the real deal. We almost missed the flight as they determined if it was acceptable for us to travel with it or not.

All of this happened half a life time ago – and I never did get to go back to Poland, though I have spent time with my Polish in laws at other occasions in other countries. We have our own children now, and our own customs for the holidays, but we still celebrate Christmas Eve the Polish way each year. I have grown better at eating the feast, and my mother in law has learned to substitute the carp in aspic for some salmon or cod. Two of the kids stick mostly to the potatoes, but the youngest loves pickles – his first food was a dill. We wait excitedly for the first star and for Santa to knock on the front door with goodies. It’s the best of both worlds – next day there are stockings and other gifts from the British side of the family, as well as the traditional turkey we know and love.