Reminiscences, Photos, and Recipes to Celebrate the Life of Sidney W. Mintz: Sveta Yamin-Pasternak

One of the best days of my life is the one Jackie and Sid and Igor and I shared in the glorious alpine tundra, hiking to the Landmark Gap Lake under the tireless sunshine of the Alaskan summer. That was in early July 2008. Jackie and I were there to soak in the beauty of the place, a very special bliss of total leisure, and the company of our smartass, hilarious, brilliant, affectionate, and ever so entertaining husbands. The husbands, both fanatical anglers, were there to fish. The four of us were on a three-week road trip around Alaska and by time we reached the Tangled Lakes area of which Landmark Gap is a part, arctic grayling and lake trout harvested by Igor and Sid in various places along the way have become our main staple. “Fish off the hook and into the frying pan is a simply unmatchable joy,” said Sid.

The supreme angling destination of that day sits at the other end of the three and half mile trail off the Denali Highway. About an hour into our hike, we were greeted by two 4-wheeler ATVs and one of the drivers asked Sid whether he wants a ride. His intonation indicated that he was at once perplexed and impressed at the sight of a man who to him looked elderly and was walking with a cane across the tundra wilderness with no vehicle in sight (on that day Sid, then 87, had hiked a distance close to five miles). In part out of politeness and part to add a 4-wheeling experience to our adventure, we encouraged Sid to accept. Jackie became the passenger of the gentleman driving the second ATV. By the time Igor and I had reached the lake, Sid and his new friends with the ATVs had a chance to discuss their experiences of serving in the US Air Force while Sid has landed several fish. Hours later – stories, jokes, light picnic with plans to save the main feast for when we are back at the campground – the four of us made our way to the vehicle, this time on foot the entire way. The weather continued to be perfect, the Alaskan summer sun was never to set (not for another month), and the sound of our laughter rolling over the tundra splendor was abundant. Everyone who knows Sid can attest that he never ran out of jokes. Many of the jokes he told were of the type where a joke was within a joke then some. “Sveta, I am no more worried about your writing tasks than I am about my own,” he once wrote to me, “but I feel obliged to keep you awake to the fact that I am your MENTOR – which means among other things I must continue to tell jokes. If, however, you also want me to talk anthropology, I sure will.”

A layered joke that Igor recalls with most fondness involves a story about an uncle of Sid’s who loaned money from Sid’s grandfather for the materials to get the walls of his outhouse chinked. The handyman – Sid’s use of Yiddishkeit notably escalates in this part of the story – had followed through with the undertaking having started from the edifice’s top. To this day I cannot quite imagine the completed project. What I do visualize quite clearly is a summer day a year after we first heard this story, when Igor and I were working on building our home. At a certain moment Igor asked that in my next letter to Sid I alert him to the fact that we are putting up siding on our house. “Assure him that we started from the bottom,” he emphasized with a serious face. This bit of insider satire worked instantaneously to bring up such vivid recollection of the renowned outhouse story told in Sid’s voice that I let a siding plank drop from my hands in a giggling fit. I couldn’t wait to retell this incident to Sid and, as anticipated, he loved the sarcastic twist. He wrote back in all capitals “TELL IGOR MY MOTHER'S FATHER -- WHO WAS ALSO MY FATHER'S MOTHER'S BROTHER [Sid’s parents were first cousins]-- IS LAUGHING… SO IS MY FATHER… RIGHT NOW HE IS SAYING TO MY MOTHER, ‘SEE, YOUR STUPID SON HAS BEEN TELLING HIS VERSTUNKENE TALL TALES FOR EIGHTY YEARS NOW, AND AT LAST HE TOLD ONE THAT CAN DO SOME GOOD!’"

Although the gustatory pleasures of our time together in Alaska converge on fresh fish, our foremost true love was salted herring. The family conversations surrounding herring described in the Preface to Tasting Food Tasting Freedom was the foremost catalyst – ahead of all his achievements – for my student fantasy to study with Professor Sidney W. Mintz. When this dream came true in the form of a postdoctoral appointment at Johns Hopkins (through a fellowship award from the National Science Foundation Fellowship Arctic Social Sciences Program – thank you!), it happened that the Eastern European deli shops in Brooklyn, New York, began vending what to our taste was a heavenly herring experience. This salted fish was marketed as the Dunaika or Dunai Herring – the same name by which Igor knew the one it reminded him of from his youth in Odessa, Ukraine. Regional taxonomies of the salted and pickled fish that various groups of the Old and New worlds praise and call “herring” certainly warrant further investigations in ethno-ichthyology. So does the vital place of mayonnaise in the pan-Soviet cuisine (alleged to be the only one in northern Eurasia where the popularity of the aforementioned emulsion exceeds that of ketchup). Its applications as an adhesive in multi-ingredient appetizers include a classic holiday dish of shredded boiled carrots, potatoes, beets, and eggs layered atop diced herring; web search for “Herring in the Fur Coat” brings up scores of scrumptious pictures and recipe variations.

Like other students and colleagues of Sidney W. Mintz, I know I will be referencing the insights gained from the discussions, jokes, and meals we have shared for as long as I shall be fortunate to live and work as a scholar of food anthropology. I want to conclude this contribution to the Second Volume of Cookbook for Sid by inserting the 2009 correspondence that surrounds the transfer of a Dunaika sample to Jackie and Sid (other beings mentioned are mine and Igor’s dog Sharik and Jackie and Sid’s cat Marcello):

Feb 16, 2009, 11:07 AM:

Sidele, I khav a verry important qvestion to ask you: will you be around today and/or tomorrow to receive a package from us? We came back from Brooklyn with Dunai herring you simply must khave. Igor already put in the box with a freezer element. It will travel well, but I want to make sure you and Jackie did not leave town. (If our bus from NY was not a late night one, I would call you to come wait at the Baltimore stop and hand it to you through the window, wrapped in newspaper for authenticity.)

Send me a note asap!
Sveta

On Feb 16, 2009, 1:44 PM:

Bubbele,

For such a special pleasure I have cancelled my trip to Florida.

S.

Feb 16, 2009, 1:59 PM:

Sharik is on his way, wearing a UPS uniform. Make sure you have a little onion and oil to dress it 1/2 hour before ingesting.

Feb 17, 2009, 4:35 PM:

Dear Sveta, Dear Igor, Dear Sharik,

The rare and costly jewel of a herring arrived as planned. I opened it full of anticipation. I ate a piece -- pure ecstasy; I produced oil and onion with which to anoint it. My cat walked in. He has not eaten in days; he is skinny and miserable. But his appearance changed when he smelled herring. i offered him a teeny weeny piece. He smelled it suspiciously. He stuck out his tongue. He licked it tentatively. And then he ate it! In my head I heard all of the bells of Moscow, announcing the defeat of the Teutonic knights -- or was it the retreat of Napoleon's army? Or was it von Paulus surrendering his marshal's baton to Malinowsky?

Anyway, it is a memorable moment for all members of my family. Jackie has indicated that she is not above eating some of THIS herring, and I think there is a feline Order of Suvorov, that I can put him in for.

Thank you very much for this unusual pleasure.

Feb 17, 2009 at 2:24 PM:

Sid,
I still have to do a Google search on some of the references your poetics evoke to fully appreciate the impact! Or maybe, to prevent the tragedy of drowning in my own escalating drool (mixed with Sharik's perpetual one), I should just go visit the provisions still remaining in our fridge...

In the meantime, there are two things I want to say.
One: now that Jackie is sold on "Dunaika," it is my greatest hope she will give a chance to its indispensable, irreplaceable other half: the kartoshechka! (though I think boiling it with peels is perfectly fine despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, revealed in a recent manuscript you reviewed).

And two: now that you learned of Marcello’s sophisticated palate, every two weeks or so, when I try to send you an email, I expect to see an automated 'out of office' response, stating "I am currently in Brooklyn procuring Dunaika herring for my cat. I plan to return with the evening bus and will try to answer your letter as soon as my fingers are licked clean." (Which reminds me to remind you not to wipe your hands on the drapes.)

Love and Hugs from all of us.
Cheers!
Sveta

Photos from Jackie and Sid’s visit to Alaska in summer, 2008.

At the home of the University of Alaska Fairbanks professors linguist Michael Krauss and anthropologist Molly Lee. Michael and Jackie studied linguistics at the same time in Harvard, and Sid was a friend of Molly’s late husband Russian anthropologist Sergei Serov.