I have no ethnic heritage. My parents grew up poor and white in the rural South, born into families with no discoverable history prior to the early 1920's. No one remembers a homeland. Being "American" and "Southern" should be enough, and it is enough, but I long for connection to an Old Country, to know traditions and recipes that have been kept alive, lovingly tended, across geography and time. Denied that connection, I console myself by visiting the ethnic markets that have sprouted up in our modest-sized town. 


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