What does it mean to have a family reunion? Is it the thing you have maybe once a year in someone’s backyard that is technically called a “reunion?” Or is it the gathering you have at the holidays or on special occasions? In the end does it really matter? The one think I can say that being a family means and revolves around is food.

Well, just think about it. What is the one time when everyone really gets together at those functions anyway? The one time everyone is really in the same room at the same time and sitting around the same place is when the food is served. Whether it’s the turkey served during Thanksgiving or Christmas or the ham grandma served at Easter, the one time everyone was really together doing something together was when there was food in front of them. Sometimes, if you have a family that likes to eat, the food also got people to shut up and stop arguing. It can be hard to continue to debate if Bush is better than someone else when you have a delectable dish in front of you our a mouthful of food.

There are some great traditional foods in my family. We are a mixed breed, that’s for sure. German is the predominant gene that courses through my family’s veins. This means that there are some very German foods that show up time and again at meal times.

Red cabbage is the one vegetable that will probably make most people crinkle their nose and make “ewww” noises. However, it is really rather delicious and tastes perfect when paired with a forkful of turkey. Too bad my stomach can’t handle the stuff anymore. I miss eating red cabbage.

Swedish meatballs is another family tradition in my family. While having the word “Swedish” in front of the “meatballs” would seem to mean this is a Swedish dish and not German, it didn’t really matter much in my family. It was a tradition to eat Swedish meatballs on Christmas Eve on my mom’s side of the family. These days that sometimes changes to turkey.

One of my favorite recipes, handed down from my mom’s mom to my mom was the pancakes that came looking like these balls of dough. My mom always called them “Ayba Skayvas.” I have no idea how to actually spell them, but that is what they always sound like. She made them in this cool pan where she would pour in the pancake mix and then she would turn the pancake over until they formed a kind of ball. These would then be served on a plate, steaming, piping hot and you would dip them in sugar which was spread around the plate. My mouth is watering as I write this and just thinking about them. These pancakes probably have some sort of traditional German name, but I have no idea what it is.

One of the finest traditions at the official family reunion which used to be held up at a house in Wisconsin until several years ago when it was moved closer to Chicago was the grilled corn on the cob. The grill used up at that house was one of those huge barrels sort of cut in half. All of us would eagerly await for the fires to be fired up on that grill and then ear after ear of fresh Wisconsin or Illinois sweet corn would be laid out. It was great. The husks were still on them. You’d get the corn silk between your teeth eating the stuff. It would crunch between your teeth and explode in your mouth. It was great.

Desserts were a specialty in my house. My mom could make cakes that you would just about kill to taste. One of the best was her pistachio cake. I don’t know what was in this thing but it came out round, with a hole in the middle and covered in white frosting. Then, when you cut a slice it was a green and brown color that was a mix of pistachio and chocolate.

Then there was the cake with the topping that was a mixture of nuts and something else and you cooked the top using the broiler of the stove. You had to sit there and actually watch the cake as the top cooked and caramelized and you had to move it around to get the whole thing cooked right. I managed to make this cake once and it turned out pretty good. It was about the proudest moment of my cooking career.

Then there was the éclair cake. This is so sinfully delicious I can barely think about it. Chocolate with vanilla pudding pressed between sheets of graham crackers. I am telling you that between the pistachio cake and the éclair cake my brother and father won two taste awards for the father/son cake-baking contest when my brother was in Cub Scouts.

I guess it is common for all families to have food traditions. The great thing about families is that they are living, changing, adapting things. So, as each member goes out and marries and brings in another branch to the family tree more of those great food traditions are incorporated.

So, whatever a family actually is these days, I think most of them still center around food. It’s food that brings things together. It’s food that brings back some of the most startling memories. It’s food that often gets passed down from generation to generation.

Bon appetite.

Bryan W. Alaspa’s new novel “Dust” is available at his website: www.bryanalaspa.com.