Their Entitlement To America, Part Three

Edited ever so slightly November 17, 2016, but actually only to add a small bit of information. 

Their Entitlement To America, Part Three”
“Guilt By Association Brings More Change”

Along came “The Great War,” later termed “World War One,” after an even greater war followed in two decades. I remember long ago talking with folks in the neighborhood who lived through that era; almost all either had German-sounding family names, or their mother’s side of the family did. There was even a bank in the neighborhood with “German” in the name, but I just can’t recall the proper title. There was also “Beethovian Hall” not far up the street from the “German” bank; at least, I think that was the proper name, and it was not only named after the famous German composer, it was the home of what I believe was called “The Beethoven Music Society.” At least a couple of German Protestant churches had “German” in their names, too. The butcher shops, even later when I was a kid, all had various types of German meats: sausages of all shapes and sizes in natural casings, head cheese, Schweitzer cheese*, Limburger cheese, Berliner ham**, Braunschweiger, blood sausage, Mettwurst, and more that I can’t even recall at this moment (the German for what we Americans generally call, "lunch meat," or "cold cuts," is "Aufschnitt," a singular noun, never used in the plural, no matter how many different meats a person is talking about. Don't ask me, that's what they do). Even the little “mom & pop” grocery stores that were all over the place, each had many of these German products for sale in their meat cases. ***

When I was little, my dad worked his job and my mother worked a seasonal job for a toy manufacturer. Those of you old enough may well remember the name of that toy manufacturer, “Marx.” (Ah oh! The right wing will say it was a communist toy commune!) The company featured ads on many of the Saturday morning cartoon shows in those days. At some point, I believe another toy company bought them up, and to my knowledge, the brand name no longer exists. Of course, it could exist in China, since that’s where we seem to get our toys made anymore, lead and all! Hmm, I don’t remember many in the right wing throwing a fit over trade deals with China, except Pat Buchanan. Do you suppose it has anything to do with their business allies who couldn’t wait for such trade? Anyway, my older brother was in school and I was frequently with my maternal grandparents. I so fondly remember my grandmother making Limburger cheese sandwiches with lots of onion on them. And of course, Grandpap would bring home a quart of beer to wash down the smelly cheese, made even smellier by the onion (then again, I’m not sure the onion could overcome the Limburger****). Unlike my older brother, who absolutely HATED Limburger cheese, and in fact refused to even stay in the same room with anyone who had a sandwich, I LOVED Limburger cheese, and still do! My grandmother would re-wrap the Limburger in the original packaging, put wax paper around it, then foil, then put it in an old, crockery-type, light blue butter dish, with a lid, and set it on the self of the refrigerator. That may seem like a lot of work for a piece of cheese, but trust me, she had to do it to keep the odor from penetrating anything or everything else in the refrigerator, not to mention what fine smell would escape when the refrigerator door was opened.

My grandparents loved all of the German meat products I mentioned above, and it was common for Grandma to pack some Mettwurst or Berliner ham for my grandfather to take to work for his lunch.

When America entered the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, the neighborhood seems to have gone through a patriotic frenzy, from what I remember hearing from “the old timers.” The name of the “German” bank was changed to something less…ah…well…GERMAN! “Dutch Cake,” the name for a type of sweet cake, was changed to “Coffee Cake.” There were other changes away from the name “German,” or products whose name was associated with Germans, but time has left me unable to recall them. The word “German” was even dropped from the church names. Most of the “Germans” in the neighborhood were children or grandchildren of immigrants, but that didn’t much matter, German was German. (A “Word History” is below the notes)

* Schweitzer is German for “Swiss,” and that was the ONLY term used for it in my neighborhood. I swear I was well into my teens before I ever heard anyone call Schweitzer cheese, “Swiss cheese,” and then I had to ask what they meant.

** I’ve got to be honest, that may have been our local name for this particular type of ham, because I could not find any info on anything termed “Berliner ham” in more recent times. When I was a kid, all the grocery stores in the neighborhood had it, and it was pronounced German-style, like "bear-leaner."

*** I already mentioned the Polish food additions in the far south of the neighborhood in “Part Two.” The Germans and the Poles actually share some of the same meat products, like blood sausage, although to be quite honest, I don’t know if the Polish version is somewhat different from the German, because, as a kid, I didn’t like blood sausage, aka “Blutwurst;” may my German ancestors not turn over too many times in their graves! A fair portion of German areas in Europe border on Polish areas, and there’s no doubt food stuffs were swapped over the centuries. I intend to cover much on the German-Polish relationship when I do some German history in the near future.

**** In those times, Limburger was pretty popular in many parts of America, and it was made by several companies, if I remember right. Limburger aficionados insisted that the worse the smell, the better the cheese, and I agree! All I can say is, some of the cheese companies back then made some VERY good Limburger, because the smell was enough to make your hair stand on end! There were some beer establishments in the neighborhood that actually sold Limburger cheese sandwiches. Some of you may remember an old episode of “The Three Stooges,” where Curly occasionally goes wild, and can only be soothed by a piece of cheese (“because his father was a rat,” according to the Stooges). He always asks for a different type of cheese, and at the end of the story, he wants Limburger. Upon getting a piece of “well made” Limburger, the trio passes out from the smell! Unfortunately, I saw a clip on television that said only one American company now still makes Limburger. I’ve tried it, and it’s pretty tame stuff, but you have to let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks (unopened) to "strengthen."

WORD HISTORY:
Lox-This noun apparently traces back to some Indo European root for "fish," as several other Indo European languages have forms of the word, including Russian and Polish "losos," and Lithuanian "laszisza." "Apparently" at some point, many Indo European dialects applied it to a specific fish, salmon. Whether this was from some borrowing of that specific meaning from another related dialect, I could not find it. Old Germanic had "lakhs," and Old English had "leax" (I could not find out if a form of this word died out). Yiddish, another Germanic language developed long ago by Jews to communicate throughout various parts of Europe, brought the spelling "lox" to America, and that's why we enjoy "lox and bagels." A form of the word is also still common in other Germanic languages, as German has "Lachs," pronounced pretty much like our word, and both Norwegian and Danish have "laks."