Perogy, pierogi

A television-induced earworm, the imperfect perfecting of memory, and a book recommendation

For years, I wondered if I was misremembering. It repeated itself in my head, a vigorous, insistent chorus over b-roll of perogy assembly. No one I mentioned it to seemed to share the same memory. Finally, with the advent of YouTube, my recollection was validated: yes, there was a clip played on the Canadian broadcast of Sesame Street of perogies being made with a choral soundtrack. Yes, the only lyrics to the song were “perogy, perogy.” Yes, this is something I almost certainly saw before I’d eaten a single perogy.

The part of the song that haunted me was the repeated theme: PEEERogy, PEEERrogy, peeeeeroGEE. I didn’t remember the fluty “oh-ho-ho-hos” two-thirds of the way in. I didn’t remember that the singing started with women’s voices, with the male part kicking in later. The visual image that had stuck with me was of the perogies on the production line, not the mixing of the dough or the happy children at the end. What has been living in my head for the last few decades was a twenty-second distillation of the clip – kind of a best-of.

I’ve been working on a novel for the last few years. I sometimes realize upon re-reading the draft that a certain aspect of a scene echoes a real event that happened to me, or something someone told me about. Characters surprise me when I realize they just used the same catchphrase a colleague I had twenty-five years ago did, some little vocal tic I’d never even realized I’d noticed. The little pieces my mind has stored away aren’t the full picture. I don’t consciously plan to bring all this into my imaginary world. As with my imperfect recollection of the perogy song, my mind has polished the hard rock of real life into tiny, unrecognizable gems. When those come together in the mosaic of fiction writing, they become something even more unrecognizable in their new form.

And that’s why I’m resisting going further down the Sesame Street video road. I’m sure I’d recall more segments (and I’ve never forgotten the psychedelic countdown to 12 I recently learned was voiced by the Pointer Sisters). But there’s a danger to replacing the little shards of memory with the real thing, when the shards are now a real thing of their own.

Book recommendation

I love dumplings of all shapes and sizes. (The early Sesame Street imprinting did its job.) Vareniki, pelmeni, momos, spaetzle, khinkali, gyoza, pozy, bread dumplings, apricot dumplings, jiaozi, xiaolongbao, uszka: you name it, it’s a friend of mine. So I am very much enjoying the Coach House Books anthology, What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings, which includes essays and memoirs about particular types of dumplings – siopao, matzo balls, ravioli – as well as lots of what-makes-a-dumpling-a-dumpling discussions, both philosophical and absurd. Perfect reading for the fall season.