Sunflowers

by

Esther Rechtschafner

 

Sunflowers are nice to look at.  The Sunflower is an attractive flower that got its name for its shape and image that depicts the sun.

The seeds can be eaten, processed into either a peanut butter or a sunflower butter alternative. The seeds and its oil are used for cooking and baking bread, in producing medicines, dyes and body paints, types of rubber, for livestock feed and for phytoremediation (treating environmental problems). The leaves can be used for feeding cattle. The flower’s stem contain fiber that is used in paper production.

During the eighteenth century, the use of sunflower oil became very popular in Russia, particularly with members of the Russian Orthodox Church, because sunflower oil is one of the few oils that is allowed during Lent, according to some fasting traditions.

Sunflowers were grown in Cherkassy in my Grandmother's day. Today they are now grown there commercially. People in the surrounding villages still have them growing in their yards.

The following story is one of my childhood memories: One day my grandmother returned from doing her grocery shopping in a very happy mood. She had found in a candy store a small box of sunflower seeds. It cost 2 cents. It was meant for people to buy to eat. She said it reminded her of her childhood and bought them for the purpose of planting them. She had no garden; but made a decision as to what she would do. She went to a Russian (who lived across the street) to ask if she could plant them his garden. I wanted to go with her. She would not allow this, for she said he did not like Jews. She let me wait outside the fence of his house. I heard her speaking with him in a foreign language - Russian. He gave her permission to plant a few of them.  Every day she would carry a pitcher of water for her sunflowers down the stairs from her apartment to his garden. She succeeded in growing four beautiful sunflowers.