The New Years pork and kraut tradition is slowly fading here. We have some kind of pork dinner and the sauerkraut is almost a side dish now.

As the eldest of seven kids, I grew up with both the tradition AND the superstitions that my German grandmother had. One of my deepest etched New Years memories is of the year we had a HEAVY snow storm and my grandmother couldn’t get anybody to walk around the house with the dinner to ensure enough to eat the coming year.

After looking for her in the house full of company and kids, my dad had a hunch where she was. She had slipped out the side, basement door in here house slippers and little back cloth coat, and the arthritic old lady was knee deep in snow, where the neighbors fence met the corner of the house, trying to figure a way over. He took HER pot (the BIG one that lived on the stove, with the wood handle on the strap that was burnt to a taper half way along one side) and finished the round so she would go back in. He hardly made a sound as he jumped over the fence as she was wise enough to wrap the CAN of sauerkraut with a dish towel to keep it from klanking. :bang:

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