Why I love violets

Posted by Debbie Kwiatoski Aug 24, 2007

My grandparents grew up in a culture where arranged marriages - often to join two families for business or social reasons - were the norm. Born of prominent Armenian families living in Turkey, my grandfather met and fell in love with my grandmother when she was only 14 years old. He asked for her hand - and was told by my great grandfather that he would consent, only if she were agreeable to the match when she came of age. A radical idea! Then, came World War I, and an Armenian Genocide. My grandmother lost her father during the burning of Smyrna and she and what was left of her family eventually were resettled in a refugee camp in Greece. My grandfather deserted from the Turkish Army and took to the hills, becoming a fighter for a free Armenia. Eventually, he too, was exiled to Greece and he began to search for my grandmother. She, thinking he would no longer want her, as she had lost everything, did not know he was searching for her. But he found her and, on April Fool's Day, he gathered a bunch of wild violets and sent them to her anonymously. He had her friends deliver them and tell her that her "secret admirer" would be in such and such a place at noon. She went - and there he was! So, each year until the year he died, violets were set on the kitchen table for her each April Fool's Day. What this has to do with food, I'm not quite sure - although I do have an article on edible violet recipes posted. But I wanted to tell the story.