We were sitting out in the sun yesterday when my Peasant Sister-in-Law pointed out that Peasant Woman was getting pretty dark, and probably needed to start wearing some sunscreen.
"Pffa!" Peasant Woman scoffed, nose turned up.
I tried to explain. "A true Peasant Woman never wears sunscreen," I said. "That's for the bourgeoise. Look at it this way: what if she was still living out in the country somewhere in the Balkans, spending most of her time out in the fields. Would she be wearing sunscreen then? Nope."
To which Peasant Sister-in-Law exhaled in exasperation, like she always does when what she's saying makes sense, even though no one else will admit it.
See, here's the thing: there's a whole long list of not-so-obvious rules that go into being a Peasant Person, and unless you're born into a Peasant Family, it takes a long time to learn which ones are steadfast and which are negotiable.
Like olive oil. Peasant Woman hates olive oil. But unless you were her Peasant Children, you might not know that olive oil was one of the only things they had to eat during WWII. Olive oil and cornbread -- no way you're ever going to get Peasant Woman close to either of those, my friend. Not if you want to stay on her good side.
Which is one of the reasons Peasant Woman gets so annoyed with the culinary trends that have sprouted up in the past few years. Like good coffee ("When I first came here, you should have seen the dishwater that passed for coffee!") or the chicory coffee I once brought back from New Orleans ("Blech. That was our breakfast when we were children. Chicory 'coffee' with warm milk. Never mind it never actually subsisted of any actual coffee.").
And then there's cornbread, that old perpetrator. "Where I'm from, only poor people eat cornbread. And now you're trying to tell me it's become some kind of delicacy?"
Peasant Sister-in-Law rolled her eyes. "Each day," she said "brings a new a lesson to learn in our adopted Peasant Life." I laughed, while my four-year-old Peasant Niece punched her mother in the leg, then clamored up into her peasant-by-marriage lap.