Superstitions of German-Russians, List of

Last Update 31 Oct  2002

Stories of Supernatural and Witchcraft told by German-Russians, their Ancestors and their Descendants continued....

Superstitions Connected To The Dinner Table

Forks, Knives, Salt and Other Things

I remember the day I dropped my fork and my grandmother rushed to it, picked it up, rubbed it off and with a smile said, "A boy is coming to visit us tonight."   I smiled.  Although I wasn't very old  I knew these sayings about forks falling to the floor were delightful and folksy but nothing to take serious.  And,  if a man did visit that evening,  he was just by chance he came on the night I dropped my fork.  As I grew older,  I tried to remember all the old sayings that was uttered around my German-Russian maternal grandparents who's ties to the old ways because they were not born in the USA but Russia in 1885.  Here are some of the saying I remember, plus, other sayings or stories people wrote me:

"Drop a knife, a man visitor would soon the visiting."

"Drop a fork, a boy visitor would soon be knocking upon our door."

"Drop a teaspoon, a young girl visitor would soon be knocking upon our door."

"Drop a tablespoon, a woman visitor would soon be knocking upon our door."

Some people wrote that their families even knew from which direction their visitor was coming.  If you dropped the fork or spoon and the top was pointing north, the visitor was coming from the north.

One didn't have to be seated at the dinner table,  if a person was in the kitchen,  the same rules applied.

"Dropping a knife, company is coming."

Dropping a knife accidentally was tricky business in some homes.  If the knife blade stuck in the floor if meant "good luck" was coming with visitors, if the blade did not stick it meant disappointments were going to be told by the visitors, or,  some interrupted this to mean that before the visitors left, an argument would occur and the visitors would leave in an unhappy state.

Scouring a bread knife on Sunday is unlucky.

And for heaven sakes,  don't think of crossing knives  [cutting implements] or forks [pointed implements] for this meant "bad luck" was being brought upon and around the table.

Oh,  I can hear the clamor of argument, now.  At some tables, the knife was not just for one male but meant many people were coming to visit, "company"...  And,  for your family, this is correct.  But remember, the fork was a relatively knew invention and our family's sayings   precedes the invention of the fork, which took up the part of the male and the knife was left for "visitors".  When I asked about the desert fork,  my mother laughed and said, "They lived on a farm and just the rich city people thought about having  all the different tableware at their table."   [It is true the fork was used in Italy in the 11th century, but it wasn't until the 17th c. when Duke of Montausier introduced it in the French court that he became known in western Europe.]  And,  for a time,  the fork when it was two pronged did represent a woman...  Therein lies the confusion.  So,  different families chose which implement was which gender and that was passed down through the ages to the present time.....

My mother, also, reminded me that her parents had goldware and not silverware when they first arrived in Kulm, ND.  My grandfather refused to use silver and though it unhealthy and some thirty six or more years later, the brittle thin goldware was finally unusable and the girls [my mother and her sisters] threw it away.  By this time,  their father,  [my grandfather] would use silverware.

What about the food on the table.  For example,  pork was forbidden on the Jewish table,  fish was to be served on Fridays [a more recent rite to help the fishermen which was lifted some years, ago] for the Catholics and my Protestant clan seem to follow no rules of what to eat and what not to eat.  Accept,  I do recall someone saying,  "Too much rich food brings on gout." Back in earlier times,  I'm sure my forefathers did have superstitions about the food they ate.  Such as onions, eggs and caviar aroused the sexual appetite.  I said that with tongue in cheek.  But on a more serious note,  I recall the superstitions on food poisoning ,especially from the canned food,  that was to save us from Ptomaine poisoning [botulism].  Most of the superstitions still exist today.  Such as, never leave food in a can, because it spoils more quickly than if one places the canned food in a glass container.  Canned food goes back to the Napoleonic wars when one of his men discovered peas stayed fresh in a seal container.  Salt, on the other hand,  has been around longer than humans.

Spill some salt,  a person must take their left hand, pinch some salt that spilt in our fingers and toss the salt over the right shoulder.  If you do not do this,  "bad luck" will be around the corner.

I've, also, heard that as many grains of salt spilled there will be tears shed throughout the world and so some people throw the salt on the salt to prevent the tears from every happening.

To keep witches away from the milk,  all a person had to do was place a spoon full of salt on the lid of the bucket.

Some carried salt in a small charm while carrying a new born baby so the child would be protected from the evil spirits.

Salt was an important for preserving food and it's worth can be still heard in old sayings, such as, "She's not worth her salt."  Of course,  that saying had nothing to do with superstitions but I threw it in the article anyway.

Long before there was a places filled with Germanic people,  the Greeks called salt their goddess of health who held the name Hygeia.  Roman called their goddess of Salt Salus.  The German-Russian grandmother placed salt on the tongue of a new born child but not for luck, it was believed if the child did not cry, it would not live long afterwards.  This was based on the energy it took for a new born to cry.

Back to the spilling of salt,  I believe it was Judas who spilled the salt at the Last Supper,  and suggested to all who followed that this was a sign that a tragedy was about to follow.  Same is true with the 13 men seated at this same table.  Another omen of something bad was to occur. It was, believed by some, if 13 sat at the same table,  one of the 13 would die within one year.

To bring good luck to a new home,  salt is sprinkled on the threshold, because no evil would dare cross over the salt.

Salt held strange properties.  It melts snow but freezes ice cream. To add to the unknown was the fact that salt seem to foretell the coming of rain [humidity].  It preserves meat and other foods.  So, it is understandable how superstitions could surround salt.

Certain foods were known to heighten sexual pleasures, but it wasn't sex Popeye, "the sailor" pushed toward my generations when we were kids.  It was spinach.  I never fell for that trick.  I knew he tasted bad and told my mother many times it was placed here on earth for rabbits not humans.  Bread, however, was something I've liked to eat. Especially fresh out of the oven.  And,  bread, of course held it's own list of superstitions.

When grain was grown in Europe, ground into flour, mixed with salt, water, and, or milk then  baked on a flat stone,  I would bet the aroma was just as marvelous as it is today when it comes out of my oven.  And,  all the various kinds of bread created since that first bread is just as mouth watering.

Don't two people reach for a loaf at the same time or "bad luck" will occur.

Don't cut both end off a loaf of bread, or "bad luck" will follow, and even worst luck if you're unmarried because it means you'll never be married..  

Don't break bread into anyone's hand, or "bad luck" will be yours.

To take the last piece of bread, "bad luck" follows.

To give away the last piece, the heel of the bread, to a stranger means one is giving away their luck.

Drop a butter knife with the butter side down means "bad luck".

If you take a piece of bread and discover you already have one on your plate, it means you will feed someone hungry in the near future.

To find a loaf of bread upside down on a table means a death in the family.

To break bread with a person means they became friends.

So eating had a certain way of bringing a person good or bad luck.

If seven people eat together it will bring  "good luck".

If you take the last portion of food from a dish at the invitation of someone, you will have  in your future the marriage to a handsome husband or beautiful wife.

Garlic was used for more than taste at the dinner table, some placed a string of garlic around the neck to prevent vampires from biting....

I wonder how wide spread this belief was?  I suspect the Rumanians were more into this than the Germans, but,  I could be wrong.  There were a number of Germans who had settled in the Banat area  from 1720 to 1800 and may have picked up this superstition before going on to Russia in the early 1800s. I think, it was more widely believed: garlic prevented diseases, so, if a person carried a small piece of garlic in a pocket and from time to time took a bite, a person believe they would not get ill.  So, what better time than dinner time than to feed those you love garlic.

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